The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - To Mask or Not to Mask

Episode Date: October 5, 2021

David Zweig is a contributor to the Atlantic, New York magazine, Wired, and the New York Times, among other outlets. He is the author of the nonfiction book Invisibles, and is working on a forthcoming book about American schools during the pandemic, called An Abundance of Caution. Dov Davidoff is a comic, an actor and a Comedy Cellar regular. 

This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of New York's world-famous comedy cellar, coming at you on SiriusXM 99. Raw dog. And on the Laugh Button Podcast Network, Dan Natterman here with P.L. Ashenbrand, our producer. She's also an on-air personality. That wasn't the original intention.

It just kind of came to be. A known Dorman owner of the world-famous Comedy Cellar is present and accounted for. We have with us an old friend and Comedy Cellar podcast veteran and alumni, Dov Davidoff, who's here, real estate entrepreneur, actor, and comedian is with us. We do want to discuss at the top of the show before our other guest, Dave's why gets here.

The recent death of Norm MacDonald died at the age of 61 after a long battle of cancer of an unknown type. No one knew he was sick. I guess he kept it secret from pretty much everybody. I was doctors obviously knew, I don't know, I guess I assume his family knew. But a few others knew. And, of course, there was an outpouring of support and love for Norm that is, I think, rather rare in the comedy world.

I mean, you know, when comics die, there's always... He was beloved. But he was more beloved than most. I mean, not since Robin Williams have I personally witnessed this level of outpouring of love and admiration and adulation. Wow. Adulation.

For a comic, then, is the case with Norm. Norm is busy on his phone, tapping away. I don't know what he's up to. This is important. Go ahead. Go ahead. Do you think Norm knew how adored he was? Oh, I don't know.

I met Norm one time and only one time. Since people like to share their Norm stories, mine is not. I only have one. I met him. I was opening for him about 15 years ago or so. It was at the beginning of the social media era. And MySpace was new. And he was completely befuddled by it.

And I just briefly talked with him backstage he goes yeah it's dane cook he's on he's on myspace asking people to be his friend what's what's that about um so he was sort of befuddled by the whole notion of uh friend requests on myspace and that was that was all we really talked about then and then i opened for him and he did his joke he did his joke about how people say, my son is gay, and I'm proud that my son is gay. And he said, well, I can see you being proud of your son that happens to be gay, but I don't know why people would be like, hey, you know, my son,

he's getting good grades at school. Oh, he just made the football team. Oh, you know what else? He loves cock. So anyway. By the way, Perrie? He loves cock. So, anyway. By the way, Perrielle would be very proud if her son was gay. She'd be proud if her son was trans. I made the same thing.

Like, aren't you going overboard? Like, who cares? You don't care if your son's gay, but proud of him? Like, it's an accomplishment? Or like, she'd prefer it if her son were gay, which I think is heterophobic. I don't know if I'd prefer it, but I would be thrilled if my son were gay, which I think is heterophobic. I don't know if I'd prefer it, but I would be thrilled if my son were gay. Why thrilled?

As opposed to being straight? In her social circles, people would elevate her. Yeah, that would elevate the status. She'd become a big star. Yes, yes. She's homosexual. That has nothing to do with it.

My mother's like that, too. Your mother's amazing. Wow, that's one word for it. Because also, he'd never leave me. Yeah, I see what you mean. They make good sons. Oh, now you're stereotyping gay people? They make good sons.

All of my gay guy friends are amazing to their moms, as opposed to, like, you know, my mother-in-law hates me. But you'll never be, well, it's unlikely you'd be a grandmother. It's unlikely you'd be a grandmother. It's unlikely you'd be a grandmother. No, I've got several gay couple friends who have kids, yeah. I mean, more and more, like, look, what's his name? Just had a kid, Buttigieg, and what's his name, Chaston? Christian, Chastity?

No, no. So much for Norm MacDonald, huh? We'll get back to Norm. We're just basically saying that more and more people are having kids that are gay. Chasen? Something like that. But getting back to Norm,

the most impressive thing, you know, as oftentimes happens when people die, I go on YouTube and I do a bit of a deep dive. No, Norm, there were some, you know were a lot of videos on YouTube

that people have been watching. The one that impressed me the most, personally, was Norm's performance at the Bob Saget roast. Now, people roast most of the time. They're trying to get the biggest laugh possible with the most edgy, gut-punched jokes that they can. Whereas Norm just went out, and it was like performance art. It reminded me of Andy Kaufman.

He went out and he did jokes that were ridiculously corny and soft. He wasn't trying to hurt anybody. So, for example, he said, you know, he said, Greg Duraldo's got the eye of an eagle, the mind of a hawk, you know, the whatever, something like that. And he goes,

this guy's for the birds. And then like you said about, um, he said about, uh, Cloris Leachman, he said, Cloris Leachman,

they say you're over the hill. Well, you'd never go over the hill with the car you drive. It's just basically that kind of stuff. Sort of vanilla material in an environment where everything is at an edge. Or with an edge. Like bazooka Joe bubblegum comic insults. Yeah.

As a matter of fact, I think he might have gotten them from a joke book or something like that. Well, that may be. You know, they sounded like joke book jokes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was like performance art. It was like, here we are in an environment where everybody's trying to be as edgy as possible. You know, I think part of the loss. We'll be with you in just one second.

Sorry. Go ahead. I'm going to put a button on it. Was that there was an innocence. Almost kind of a naivete. But he was. He was very intellectually curious. Read a lot.

But Norm was somebody who was less concerned with a lot of things people are concerned about. He was hilarious. And deeply, deeply funny. No, no. I like the Bob Saget roast. But some of those appearances, like on Kona, where he tells long, long jokes. Oh, yeah. Original and funny.

Yeah, yeah. An original voice, which is very rare. I really am curious about this idea that, you know, people have this outpouring of love and respect and admiration after you die. But I really do wonder if he knew how beloved he was while he was alive. Do you know how beloved you are, Peril? I do, actually. Probably less than I imagined.

I think he had a good idea. He had a very robust career. And I think he probably, you know, got a lot of praise whilst he was alive. I don't know that he could feel it, I think, which is probably a common theme with a lot of people that do humor is that they can't feel it regardless. He had fans that were obsessed with him, too. Yes.

Hey, but you know what's a great show? Star Search. You ever watch that show? God damn. That is an excellent show. Excellent. I'll tell you what the best thing about Star Search is. You get to see the stars of tomorrow today.

You don't have to wait an extra day. My favorite thing on Star Search is the junior dancers. Those are my favorite, you know? I love those junior dancers, because I like how Ed introduces them, you know? It's always like, Hot property! Then they all come dancing.

Too cute for you! The funny thing about the junior dancers is it's not like if they win they're gonna go on to become junior dancers. There's no place in show business for that, you know? It's not like you're ever hanging out, Hey honey, what do you want to do tonight? Go see a movie or something? Or maybe grab a beer down at the bar or something? Hey, hey, I know. I know a good thing. Hey, why don't we go to that new joint they got down on Main Street?

That's a good club. They got six-year-olds dancing. Yeah, I understand hot property's going to be there tonight. They're good. Yeah, that's Hot Property is going to be there tonight. They're good. Yeah, that's right, Little Children. Yeah. Yeah, they're better live than on TV, I've heard.

They're good. That's right, Little Children dancing. Come on, honey. Get your coat. Let's go. We got to beat that. Look at this. This is edibles. Yeah, look at this. This is edibles.

Yeah, look at that. Is that what you were texting about when you were like, this is important? I was texting about somebody who tested asymptomatic positive for COVID. All right. Okay? Yeah. Okay? Highly hungry.

Highly hungry. I need this to comment down. All right. So let's... Mr. Zweig is here. Okay. Should I introduce this to calm down. To calm it down. All right. So... Mr. Zweig is here. Okay. Should I introduce our guest? And Mark Norman.

You know, Mark Norman. Yes. Mark Norman is a huge Norm MacDonald fan. And he took it very, very hard. I thought we would get him on the podcast, but I guess he wasn't available

or he didn't want to talk about it. But I can't read your eyes, Pearl. It's not a hostage video. I mean, he didn't write me back. Oh, he didn't write you back. I thought maybe he was out of town. All right. Anyway, let me introduce David Zweig, who just joined us.

David Zweig is a contributor to, I think, one of Noam's favorite magazines, The Atlantic. Also, New York Magazine, Wired, and The New York Times, among other outlets. And the author of the nonfiction book, Invisibles. He's also working on a book about the pandemic called An Abundance of Caution. You can follow him on Twitter at David Zweig. Zweig is spelled Z-W-E-I-G. I before E, except after C. Or N.

Sounded like A as in... Whatever, but in this case, it's Z-W-E-I-G. David Zweig, welcome. Neighbor and gay. David Zweig, how are you? Good. This is already an amazing beginning because I've heard my name pronounced perfectly by multiple people all in one sitting.

It's like, I should just leave now. How do they say it? They say Zweig? No, they just said it correctly. No, but how do other people say it? Oh, I mean, it runs the gamut. Zweig, Zweig, Zweig. This is already exciting for me.

Before I begin, I was wondering if you had any, we can talk about it later, if you have any opinions about the Gabrielle Petito case, and we can make some time at the end to discuss it. If not, then we won't. I'm not even familiar. Okay, never mind. I'm not either. It's the biggest story in the country.

What is this? It hit Dan very hard. It's one of these gossipy murder cases. Is this a pretty young white girl? The one who's missing? She's missing, but she was found murdered. And of course, the number one suspect is her age-appropriate boyfriend.

So, you know, I'm just saying. The only thing I saw about it was someone had tweeted or said on air that it was something like, well, of course, because this was a white girl. Yes, that's the controversy. That's the controversy. The controversy is

is the media more likely to talk about a missing white girl than a missing woman of color? And the answer is yes. And the answer is yes. Although none of you guys have any idea what's going on, so apparently maybe not.

Right, it depends what you call the media. It's like, you know, there could be like a giant story that, right? Like 30 years ago, there would be a huge story and everyone would know that story in the same way that everyone watches Seinfeld. I don't think anything is huge in the same way that it used to be. So even the biggest story in the country doesn't reach the same number of people in the same way that the biggest story of the country would have 20 or 30 years ago. That's correct. Also, Mr. Zweig is a sinologist.

And so, you know, this is is not the story you really want to communicate about with him. You want to get into what he's Well, I just want to say he studies China. There's a lot going on in China right now, for God's sake! That is a different David Zweig? No, my bad. No, no, this is

David's week. It comes up right away. There's like at least five David Zweigs. So one of them is a guy who... They're all smart. You guys have a lot of writers named Zweig. Yes, a lot of David Zweigs.

So that is a different... But if you Google, it's like his picture with my bio. It's like this weird mishmash. I can't believe I found you. Yes, I'm impressed that you... You got the wrong fucking David Zweig. You wanted to talk about China. I apologize. I just want to say, I'm impressed that you got the wrong fucking David's wife. You wanted to talk about China. I apologize.

I just want to say, I'm thinking about this black woman of color thing, and it's certainly possible, but there are other probably variables. One is the, so tell me, was she? She looks like Kirsten Dunn, so she's very pretty. Are they, like, wealthy? No. The added angle is attractiveness. It's not just white, right?

Well, for instance, like Tawana Brawley was a huge story. Huge. She was a black woman. That was 30 years ago. I know that. But then, well, I don't want to say it. Then it was a woman in Chicago who we actually know. That was a big story, not as big as this.

But you're right. There's like, was it Chandra Levy or something? Was that the one? Well, they call it missing white. But that's because there was a congressman involved. Missing white woman syndrome is what some have named it. Right. So I'm asking, like, list a few of the other missing white women.

Lauren Spiegel. I never heard of her. Well, Smart. That girl. Elizabeth Smart. Elizabeth Smart. She was the one in. Mormon.

Mormon girl that was abducted, and they found her alive after she had been taken basically hostage. By aliens. And are there stories... I thought it was, yeah. And then there's a story with the police, with the woman who was shot with the knock warrant, or it turned out not to be a knock warrant.

What's her name? Yes, yes. Breonna Taylor. But that's a police story, so yes, that's different. But are there stories that we know about of black girls who were in the same situation that weren't covered? I think some of it's socioeconomic, too. I think when you hear somebody went missing in the South Bronx,

people go missing in apartment buildings. I mean, when you're in certain neighborhoods, a lot of people get shot. It's not big news. If you have 10 shootings inside of 30 days, it It's not big news. If you have 10 shootings inside of 30 days, it's no longer big news if there's an 11th shooting.

On the other side, you get shot, it's big news. Right, but that's not the only place black people live. You think like if an upper middle class

pretty black woman in a... It has nothing to do with the only place black people live. My analogy is about where shootings are common and where they're not as a function of airplay. I understand, but I'm asking,

do you think that if it was like a similar socioeconomic story? Yeah, absolutely. All the variables are the same. Yeah, if Jay-Z's kid gets kidnapped, believe me, it'll be on the front page of everything. Jay-Z is, that's like, you know, I'm making a grand analogy. If somebody from a upper-middle-class neighborhood

You think of it as a one-to-one comparison. a cute black girl in a thing. If the only difference is race, you think it would be covered the same way. There may be another variable difference. I don't know what value to place on the metric, but I certainly know that depending on the number of people

and the degree of chaos in the current environment, that will correlate with the amount of airplay that story gets. I think that all other variables held equal. The white girl gets more coverage. But my question is, how important is media coverage to the resolution of these cases? It's very important. And the fact of the matter is, we can't give... You can sometimes screw them up.

We couldn't possibly give every missing person... There's not enough eyeball hours. It's a word. And the fact of the matter is we can't give... We can sometimes screw them up. We couldn't possibly give every missing person... There's not enough eyeball hours. It's a word I made up. I don't know. Eyeball hours. There's not enough eyeball hours... E-O as we call it. E-H's.

What does that mean? Eyeball hours. Okay. There's not enough eyeball hours in a day to give every disappearing person a lot of media coverage. I don't think a lot of people disappear. That's not the point. Yes, there are. So, you know, what we need to focus on

is not giving huge media coverage to everybody that disappears. We need to focus on making sure law enforcement does its job with equal force and with equal robustness for all victims. All right, let's talk about COVID. Do you have any comment to that? I agree with you.

It's never happened. I'm open to the sociological truth of the premise of the conversation. I don't know if that's racism or if it's just... Do you think a poor white person in West Virginia goes missing,

he's going to get the same coverage as some hedge fund guy's kid on the Upper East Side. He won't get the same coverage, but will the same... So it's not just a function of race, though that's certainly a fact. But it's not just a matter of... There's a lot of nuance.

I mean, the media right now... Zweig agrees with me. What do you know? He won't get the same coverage, perhaps, but will the law enforcement give him the same treatment, which I think... No, of course not.

If Noam's kid gets kidnapped, it'll be a much bigger story and probably more, of course, and probably more, you know, law enforcement kind of focus than if a guy who was just convicted of a meth felony and his kids are, you know, he's sort of in and out of it and he's got seven kids and they don't know what. Let's say we're guessing and we really don't know. I think what... My point is I think what's more important is the response of law enforcement, not the response of the media. I just fear that... I just fear...

Not fear. I think that when a story is a good... Has a good, interesting, gossipy plot line... Cute young Mormon. That would make a good movie, for whatever reason, that grabs attention and you know

and these stories that we know that have become like national things they've all been interesting in one way or another it's been more than

just the fact that it was somebody white because we presume for every one of these white girl disappearing stories that grabs the attention of the country there are probably

a few dozen that nobody cared about. The hot broad gets the attention. You know that. And was it Casey Anthony? She was hot. Yes. And then Scott Peterson.

It's more correlated. He was hot. More correlated with, you know, looks than his color probably. Casey Anthony was super hot. That's what I'm telling you. She was hot.

She murdered her fucking two-year-old daughter. Oh, Benadryl. It was a little extra Benadryl. I like Benadryl. Guys are really missing the forest for the tree. It is totally a function

of systemic racism. Okay, well, fine. So let me ask you this. Among, let's say there was just dealing with the white cases. What do you account for, how do you account for the difference in the coverage between the various white girls who get?

Well, I think that in part what you're saying is true is that it's attractiveness. It's socioeconomic. But also the media is primarily white and they are more attracted to these stories of these white girls. Right. But how do you how do you account for? I think they're more attracted to these stories of these white girls. Right, but how do you account for... I think they're more attracted to clicks. But leaving the race issue out, let's just take the white universe of these stories.

How do you account for the drastic difference in that universe? Well, I think it's what you said. That's the hot girl. It's the story. It's the hot girl. It's what's going to get clicked, right? So whatever the reason that this white girl got more attention than all the white girls,

why would that not be the same reason this white girl got more attention than the black girls? Well, I mean, because I don't think you ever hear about black girls who go missing. I named a couple off the top of my head. No, you didn't. You named one. There was a woman in Chicago.

I don't want to say her name because she... They don't make national stories. This was a national story. Any of the girls... You don't... Because you don't read... Anyway, you don't care. That's why.

You only read about the white girls. That's why you don't know about them. All right. Okay. So, Mr. Zweig, I heard you on... Was it on... We're on Megyn Kelly?

I was. I heard you on Megyn Kelly and you were throwing a lot of cold water on the idea that kids should wear masks, or that it's been properly and scientifically proven that kids should wear masks in schools. And just full disclosure, I have a 9-year-old, an 8-year-old, and a 4-year-old all wearing masks.

She has a 9-year-old. 8-year-old. 8-year-old. 8-year-old also wearing a mask. So this is a story close to home. So tell us a little bit, give your spiel about the whole thing. Your spiel. My spiel. Well, because I heard of Megyn Kelly and he gave it and he also, that's what he has to do, has to give a synopsis of his story. Yes, understood. Yeah. I mean, I also, I have a 12-year-old and a 10-year-old, so this is important to me too. And so I wrote an article for New York Magazine about masks

and specifically the lack of evidence that mask mandates in schools are effective. And I approach this apolitically. I've been writing about COVID and children and children in schools and sort of the nexus between kids, schools, and COVID since the spring of 2020. And I've always approached this sort of apolitically. I just want to find out what does the data show? What is the evidence?

What's going on here? Isn't it a funny time that you have to say? I know, I have to give my preamble. No, I approach, you know, the cure to cancer apolitically. I'm compelled to say I'm not anti-mask. I'm not an anti-vaxxer. I'm not a Republican operative. Once I do all that throat clearing.

What a time. Yes. I mean, that's a whole other story, which kind of ties into this. I mean, the blowback that I get as a journalist in sort of, I guess, what you would call the prestige media. I mean, what you would call the prestige media. It is challenging. But I think it's important to try to, you know, rather than just writing for an audience who's already kind of excited about, you know, who already is predisposed to believe something or think it,

I'm fortunate enough to be able to write for places where, at least on this topic, the audience is probably more skeptical of some of this. So what I looked at was there was a study that published by the CDC, and it was of 90,000 students in Georgia. I think, I forget how many schools, something like 160-something schools. And there are essentially no studies that compare schools with masking mandates versus schools without masking mandates or a variety of other mitigation measures from, you know, HEPA filters and barriers, this, that, and the other. There's very, very little bit where you're doing

what you would call like a cohort study where you're comparing. Almost all of the studies that people point to are, you know, masks work, masks work in schools, but they're doing masks plus a bunch of other things and they're not comparing it to anything else. There's a study out of Duke that got a ton of attention where they said they looked at, I forget, it was like a million students. It was a huge thing, but they didn't have a compare. There was no control group. It's just so if everyone's wearing a mask and they said, look, and the cases were low. Surely that's it's because of the mass.

But you can't. That's not how science works. You can't do five different things and say, oh, it's because of thing number two, that that's why it worked. You don't know that. So and the history of medicine and science is littered with examples where people were positive that they knew X, you know, was happening. And then it turned out later that that's not the case. Until you do a randomized control trial or other sort of comparative studies of some sort, it's very challenging to make any sort of claim when you're doing multiple things. So here's the interesting thing.

The CDC puts out a study, does not get a lot of attention, but because I'm a crazy research person, I read everything. And this study was of 90,000 students, and they actually did compare schools with mask mandates to some schools that didn't have mask mandates. And what they found was there was no statistically significant benefit of the schools that did mandate masks for students. Interestingly, what they also found was there is no statistically significant benefit for HEPA filters, for barriers, or for distancing. These are sort of like, you know, this is like almost like, you know, heresy to say this. And in the summary at the top of the study, which of course is the only thing that most people read, journalists, they just kind of tend to look at the summary, the abstract. They mentioned that masking teachers did provide a benefit. That's what's in the summary.

And that ventilation, you know, from like getting fresh air, that also they saw a benefit. But what they left out of the summary were all these other what are called null findings, which means where you don't find a statistically significant benefit. And I thought, man, that's kind of insane. It's just as important to not find something and mention that than to only mention the things that you do find. Would you say that was political? I mean, it's hard to imagine any reason. And this is not my opinion. I talked to a whole

variety of experts on this, and I quote a few of them in the article. And they said that that is in their mind that was totally inappropriate because masks are such an important issue and HEPA filters and all this other stuff to not mention that you didn't find a statistically significant benefit, to not also put that in your summary at the top of the study, I mean, that seems like kind of a nonsensical decision. It's intellectually dishonest. And so it's the manifestation of some politicization. Could be. Or just trying to get coverage for the study. You know, who knows? I mean, so to me, look,

and sure enough, look what happened. No one wrote it, but you took, you know, me, essentially, or I read the whole thing, and I'm like, oh, there we are, you know, a thousand or several thousand words in, then you start reading and you look at the tables where they put all this stuff, I'm like, oh, holy beep. You know, oh, And then I call up, at this point, I have like a Rolodex of infectious disease people at Harvard and different places who I talk to practically every day. And I'm like, am I crazy? Or is this, am I reading this properly? And they're like, okay, let's go. And that kind of led me on the road. So, and then I wrote about this study for New York. And then on top of that, if you look at the CDC's guidance, I don't know if it's changed in the last month, but on their

page, they, you know, where they say, we recommend masking students in school. And there's a whole bunch of citations, you know, where there's little footnotes. I actually went through, clicked on every single citation that seemed to reference in some manner masking mandates and why they may be effective. Here's our evidence. Here's our evidence for why we're making this recommendation. And you start clicking through and you start reading every one of these studies. I made a huge spreadsheet. I had an epidemiologist fact check me and go through it herself as well to make sure I wasn't misinterpreting something. Every one of these studies had either, like the thing I mentioned about Duke, where it was, yeah, there were masks in schools, but they were doing five other things at the same time.

They listed studies where kids weren't wearing masks. I think it was in Switzerland or somewhere else. And I'm like, that was part of their proof for why you should wear masks in schools was a study where no one was wearing them, where the kids weren't wearing masks. They did something with a hair salon. It was insane. I was astonished that this is the evidence being given for why they want to do masks. By the way, I check footnotes a lot as well. Good, good.

And it is not uncommon at all that the footnotes have, sometimes they are exactly the opposite of the point. You see that? Like, very often, exactly, I saw one today. The footnote says, this is not valid. Checks will not be on it. Right. There was an article in the Urban something blog. It got some coverage about how objectivity is racist and blah, blah, blah.

And anyway, it was a footnote to a study. And the study said exactly the opposite of what... But is it underlying? Well, yeah. So this is my thing. Do masks work for adults? So the thing with masks is, one of the problems is we just use the word masks, but...

N95 masks. Right. So there is some pretty good evidence that some masks work on some people in some circumstances. Because that's really how you have to refer to it. N95s do seem to show a really good effect, particularly if they are fit tested, which is healthcare workers get these masks. Everyone remembers like all those images of the nurses and doctors where you saw their face all ripped up because they were wearing an N95. That's how an N95, when it's fit properly, it's sealed on your face so no air can get in around the edges.

Okay, but what about KN95s, which are more, which is what I'm wearing right now. The Chinese version, yeah. Well, they're not. Oh, you are a Chinese specialist. They're not NIOSH approved. I mean, some of them are not Chinese because some of them are NIOSH approved. Oh, right, right, right. Yes.

Okay. So the KN95s are more widely available. That's what I'm wearing right now. I mean, are those effective? They appear to be similar to a regular N95. And even surgical masks appear to be somewhat effective. So there's N95s slash KNN5s,

surgical masks, and then there's the cloth masks that you bought off of Etsy. But this is where I'm going with that. That's not... That does nothing. Or not a lot. It says, I love Aruba. That is important. Hold on,. Or not a lot. Use it as a condom. It's not useless. It says, I love Aruba. That is important.

To communicate. Hold on. Let me get to my point. Communicate's a valid point. Hold on. So, I mean, if there was a study that showed that smoking caused cancer in adults, we wouldn't need or wouldn't expect a study on children before we assumed that it causes cancer in children.

And if I know masks are effective at protecting adults, why would I... Some masks in some circumstances. In some circumstances. Why would I not assume that masks would also be effective with children? Why do I need to study just on children? That's a very good question.

And that ties into what we were just talking about. Because I don't know about your kids, but almost all kids in America are wearing a cloth mask. That's the majority of kids in schools. Right. Not all. But that's why they're not effective, by the way. Right. Correct. So what's interesting and this is not this is not a this is not like a controversial point.

Like there's a guy named Michael Osterholm who is like a super kind of insidery guy. He was on Biden's COVID task force. He has publicly and repeatedly talked about how cloth masks

are only marginally effective. You really need an N95. A person named Celine Gounder. This is also for outgoing transmission? It's for both, right? For the recipient

and the... Fauci said it too. Yeah, we had this in the very beginning. I yelled at her about it. Okay, so let's start establishing some things here. One is the difference between masks. And Celine Gounder, who's an infectious disease person,

she also was on Biden's task force. She's talked about this and she tweeted a chart and it showed that if both the recipient and the, I don't know what the term is, the infected person are both wearing a cloth mask, they estimated it at roughly 27 minutes of protection. This is a total estimate, by the way. Not 26, not 28. Exactly. But anyway, now, if you're a kid in school for seven hours in a classroom with your peers, I don't know if 20, you know, how does that square with 27 minutes of supposed protection? So one of the things is the actual

sort of like mechanistic effect of masks, how much they're, you know, if you do a study on mannequins and these other things that they've done, then the other thing is compliance. And there's a difference. If you'll notice, I keep saying the term mask mandate rather than mass because human beings are, we are not the same thing as what occurs in a lab and humans, particularly kids, but even adults, everybody like wearing a mask is abnormal. It's annoying. It's weird. You want to take it off to breathe better if you want to talk to somebody. And that's, I think another one of the big reasons why the mask mandates are not necessarily seeing a particular effect. Remember, this study was 90,000 students, and they did not see a statistically significant benefit. So part

of it probably has to do with the type of mask that most of the people are wearing. And part of it probably has to do with the fact that masks are different from a mask mandate. And we don't know to what degree there's compliance, how people are wearing them. Are they pulling it down a lot? Are you touching your face a lot more often? You know, et cetera, et cetera. So do you want your kids to, your kids to wear masks in school? No. Well, so here's, here's the other thing that I talk about. You don't want them to wear N95s properly worn. No. And I'll tell you why.

Yeah, go ahead. I'll tell you why. So a couple reasons why. So number one, what I try to do in all of my reporting, I'm often looking outside the United States to Europe. Because it gives people some perspective that we don't, most of the journalists I feel like don't typically give us this broader context. And one of the things that I think a lot of people may be unaware of is no one in your no young children in Europe are wearing masks in schools. The World Health Young under age six. OK, so the world is a big difference. I'm going to get there. So the World Health Organization has repeatedly throughout the pandemic said no one under age six should be wearing a mask,

period. We just don't think it makes sense. The benefits are not worth it. They may not be able to comply properly, et cetera. And because the risk of them being seriously ill is so low. Correct. Exactly. The cost benefit of doing it doesn't make sense. They say age six to 12, they don't recommend masks for them either, except under certain circumstances. And so there are a number of countries now in Europe where either the youngest kids are not wearing masks. Many of the countries, it's all the way up to age 12, they're not wearing masks. And there are now a number of countries in Europe where none of the kids all the way up through high school, no one's wearing masks except maybe in certain circumstances, like in a hallway where it's like very crowded. So we have to start first, I think it's important context to just say, well, wait a minute. If none of these people in Europe are doing this, how do we know that we're right and they're wrong?

So without even saying automatically that one side is right or wrong, at minimum, I think the CDC and health authorities would owe the American people an explanation for why Europe is wrong and why we're right. And to me, what I find most persuasive is rather than a study, you know, like the CDC study, you know, that they published that I was referring to is simply observational evidence. There is no evidence that kids in Europe are becoming seriously ill and infected or dying at any greater rate than they are in the United States, even though they have a wildly different guidance regarding masking and a variety of other mitigation measures. That's something that we need to look at. And so observational evidence is powerful. And then the second answer to your question about why don't I want the kids

to wear them is kids are at incredibly low risk from COVID. It's not zero. There are kids in the hospital. That's true. Kids even die, some of them. That's horrible. So COVID is real. I'm not denying that it's a thing, but the risks of COVID to children are no greater and in fact are less than many other things. More kids have died of the flu in many different flu seasons than they did from COVID. You can go on the CDC's website. This is not my opinion. I'm not like making... I think in 2018, 2019, 477 kids died of the flu, where in the same span of time for COVID it was like 400. It was around the same or significantly lower. In the swine flu epidemic

in 2009, they estimated 600 kids died. I don't mean to be argumentative, but you can't do it by number of people who died. You have to do it by number of people as a percentage of people who had cases of it, right? Well, but the population was probably even lower.

Out of X number of kids with COVID, this percentage died. But isn't the larger point that we're at? If 450 kids had the flu and all 450 died. There's a case fatality rate versus population fatality rates. Right. And death isn't the only thing we need to worry about. Right, long-term effects that you don't really know about. All of the evidence suggests that COVID does not pose a risk

that's greater than the flu to children. And we certainly know more kids die drowning each year than have died of COVID. We know suicide. I mean, the list goes on and on. Car accidents. So it's not that COVID isn't a risk. It is.

But at a certain point, what I argue and what a number of the experts I've interviewed argue is we need to start asking, how does this risk compare to other risks to children? from the public health authorities has to not accurately express the age stratification of risk. That COVID is incredibly serious to older people and serious to people with underlying conditions. And miraculously, it is incredibly benign to almost all children. The CDC estimates that approximately 50% of kids who have COVID are asymptomatic. I mean, that's pretty stunning that half the kids who get it don't even know they have it. But what about the note? First of all, I think that has been pretty well emphasized. I think most people you speak to are aware of that.

But what I've heard. Not to the extent. I think it's a little bit safer for kids. The extent is extraordinary. But people make the point that kids are a vector. Victor. so that so that airplane reference, so

that kids can get it and bring it home and you know, in that way make the pandemic worse. Yeah, but now that people are vaccinated that's apparently... That's right. I mean, I think that probably was a pretty reasonable argument to make before vaccines came on the scene.

But at this point, any adult who's not vaccinated, that's their choice. But I don't see why children should have a burden imposed on them to protect someone who chose not to get vaccinated. Secondarily, most of the evidence shows that kids are far less likely to infect an adult than the other way around, than adults infecting children. I would disagree with you on the point that you made that people are unaware that it's fairly benign for children because that does seem to have been a... Noam, do you agree or disagree?

It seems to have been a widespread... It is widespread, but there's also these polls that show how as people are more and more liberal and progressive, they have wildly... Correct. Liberals are far, far less correct on their estimates on the risk to children than conservatives are. It's completely off the charts. Liberals think it is far, far more dangerous to kids than it is. The media doesn't really cover the cases

where conservatives are actually more accurate in their perception of things. For the love of God, come on. No, it's true. It's absolutely true. You'll hear headlines. X number of conservatives believe blah, blah, blah. But this is the case where liberals are totally whacked out and alarmist.

It's inherently hypocritical, but also we're just at peak cognitive bias right now. If you attach yourself to a notion that is largely emotional without the underlying data, you arrive at screening out everything that doesn't substantiate your already held emotional opinion.

I don't actually agree with him. Well, you're wrong. He's right. Push back as hard as you can. Zweig knows. So just, but just, let me first, just a little tangent here. So this thing about N95s is very, very important. So I even found that this mask comes in a small, because this is the real deal, right?

This is for people listening. This is this Scotch, a 3M 1860 back of the head. They use for painting, right? For painting. I know, but like when you put this on, you know you're wearing a mask. 3M are the people, of course. They're used for painting, right? For painting. I know, but when you put this on, you know you're wearing a mask. 3M are the people, of course, that brought us post-it notes.

It's an 1860, and they have an S model, which is small. And I bought those for my kids, but they're wearing the K-9. Anyway, but on our local Ardsley Facebook group... You live in Ardsley?

Yeah, I live in Ardsley. Where do you live? Hastings, on us. Ah, we're neighbors. Rivertown, Rivertown. That's sweet. So on our local Ardsley Facebook group. You live in Ardsley? Yeah, I live in Ardsley. Where do you live? Hastings, on Hunts. Ah, we're neighbors. Rivertown, Rivertown. So, on my local Ardsley Facebook group, I posted that, listen, the kids are going to go back and they're going to have to be wearing masks. And I posted the data.

I said, shouldn't we be insisting that if we're going to go through this, that all the kids and the teachers wear K or N95 masks? Because otherwise, it's a total waste of time. They would not post my post in the group. I was censored

from the group. Wow. That's great. Usually the censorship goes in the other direction. You know, I was called like, why do you want to murder children if you question it?

So it's interesting. We had experts on in the beginning of the pandemic and we had this exact same conversation, which is that these masks are effective and the other are much significantly more effective. Well, I think what's going on here is that I guess what they're saying is that when you factor in how much lower the risk is to children of serious illness and how much less likely it is

that children are going to wear the masks properly. At some point, you come down to that it's more trouble than it's worth. It doesn't actually produce any effect. And I can believe that's true. However, that really doesn't answer the question of whether my kids should wear a mask. If I can be realistically, have a realistic belief that my kid will wear the mask properly. And I think that if I can get, if I believe my kid will wear the mask properly. And it's an appropriate, and it's a K95 and it's a,

yeah. Then I think that protecting it from he or she will be just as protected as an adult would be. And yes, they say it's less risky when kids get COVID. But this is where you lose me a little bit, because I'm really worried about the long term effects. There are other examples of things like RSV, for instance, where they find out 20 years later that actually there is a correlation between having a certain childhood illness and having certain neurological problems, cognitive. You're talking about externalities, but doesn't. And the final point is this, and this I think is lost.

If we didn't have a vaccine, which was imminent, Fauci said fall, not even winter, that the vaccine should be approved to children. If this was going to go on as far as the eye could see, I'd say, yeah, maybe this is not worth putting the kids through it. But is it worth putting them through it for six or eight weeks? Why take the chance? It's not going to be six or eight months.

No, no, but if they can get vaccinated, Fauci just this week said he expects the vaccine. Well, you don't know that. Well, he's not, first of all, he's at NIAID, which is part of NIH. They are not involved. The FDA the vaccine well you just don't know that but i mean yeah well he's not first of all he's at niaid which is part of the nih they are not involved that the fda approves vaccines so fauci but they can be emergency i know i mean i'm sure fauci's got the inside you know the red phone he can talk so i'm not saying he doesn't know but um i just spoke to him yes so you know so a couple things

i mean these are all first of all i think it makes more sense if you're going to have kids wearing masks. I mean, I'm hesitant to even say this, but like actually wear a mask that we know works. So what you're saying is actually more sensible. But here's why. But I would take it in the other direction, which is that, again, when you're looking at kids in Europe, there's no evidence that they are falling ill at a greater rate than kids are in America. Number one. Number two, and you're right, other illnesses, all sorts of, if you get a really horrible case of influenza

or RSV, I think I'm going to mispronounce, but it's sequela, which is sort of like long-term symptoms. Your body is fighting off like a horrible virus, whether coronavirus is not unusual in that it can cause some long-term symptoms. But I guess what I would ask you is, and there's no right or wrong answer to this. It's about each person's own sort of like risk tolerance or how they want to live life. But you don't have your kids wearing a mask normally because RSV has been around before COVID. So has influenza. So has a zillion other things.

I assume you don't want your kids wearing masks, or maybe you do, for that normally. So we have to ask ourselves, what are we, what kind of life, because there are people now floating the idea of, well, we think kids should wear masks every winter during flu season. Well, I don't know the answer to that, but I would say that we, I think we have learned a little lesson from Asia that if there is a, like, I remember when my daughter got RSV, it was a time when they're telling us RSV is going around now. It might be actually wise during flare-ups of certain childhood illnesses to have our kids wearing masks. I'm not, I'm not like Mr. Maskwearer, but they do that. They do do that in Asia. Yeah. What about that case in Mississippi?

Forget Europe for a second. There was just a big story a few weeks ago that there was no masks in this school in Mississippi. Do you know the one that I'm talking about? I don't, but it's okay. Go ahead. And a whole bunch of people. And a bunch of kids got sick. No, no, no. A whole bunch of people died and they had to close down like the entire school district for like two weeks.

I mean, so. I can pull it up. No, no, I believe you. But isn't it the blind that he's talking about all of Europe? What's it matter what went on in Europe? All of Europe. He said all of Europe. If there was a school where a bunch of kids died, I'd like to know. I believe you.

A bunch of kids died or teachers? She doesn't know. You know Perry Oldham. Were they vaccinated? She really reads memes most of the time. Okay, but all of Europe. He can say all of Europe and everybody just goes along with it. I mean.

He sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Go on the world. Dwight knows his stuff. You can click through. If you go to the national websites for, you know, in the UK, in Ireland, in Denmark, in Sweden. No, no, but stay on this Mississippi. Okay, yeah. You look up the Mississippi.

I'm looking it up. Is Periel authorized? My understanding is that Periel was authorized to continue the conversation, to chime in on the current subject, but not to completely go off. No, no, no. But I'm glad you raised this. I'm glad you raised this. I'm glad you raised this. And here's why. This is an anecdote. And what I think people need to be aware of is, number one, is an anecdote true? And then number two, if it's true, is it representative of a

broader phenomenon? So that very well may be true, what you're saying. I'm not denying the Mississippi thing. But the question is, does that represent kind of more broadly what's happening, right? So there will always be a school with an outbreak. There will always be a kid who gets really sick or dies. We could find that every single week. There could be some news story about an outbreak in a school. We're always going to find that. This is going to be an endemic thing that doesn't necessarily, there's something like 60 million children in America. So you're talking about, there was an outbreak in a school in Mississippi. That's horrible. We don't want that to happen. But we also, that's horrible too. But we also

don't know that that has a relation to or not to mask wearing. It may or it may not. We don't know. This is an anecdote about a thing that happened. So let me say two things. If a bunch of kids, young kids die in a school of COVID. I'm saying there was a fatality, but how many? I see one fatality. She's not a good reader. That's the problem.

But it's true, Perry. I see one fatality unless you're showing me there were more, which is tragic enough. I have a little pet theory here, a pet worry. I'm not familiar with the case, so we don't know. Did the case originate in the school? There are a number of studies that show that schools have an equal to or lower rate of transmission. There was a big study that was done in Wisconsin published by the CDC itself.

The schools, they were in, like, with really, really high transmission rates in the community, and the schools stayed open, and the transmission rates were much lower in the schools. So we don't, so I'm just saying there's not, I don't know the details of the story, but I think to me... I don't really either.

Okay, that's, to me, what I think is more salient, and what people need to, because, and this ties into your stuff about the missing girl and stuff like that, stuff like that is sort of the question about like, what is news, right? And when you're talking about medical stuff and stuff like that, when it is an anecdote, that's very resonant to people. It's, it's, you know, it's emotional. You, in the beginning of the pandemic, the New York times ran this giant feature on some like young guy who was in the hospital. I don't know if it was for COVID or for MIS-C, that's the, uh, the inflammatory syndrome. And, you know, it's like, just this sort of like handsome, young, you know, healthy boy in the hospital. And it was this like

2000 word piece. That's what people remember. And they're freaking out. But what you don't know is that 60 million kids who are fine. Um, but we remember that and it resonates with us, but it's sort of the same thing. Remember in the 1990s when crime started to go down in New York? But if you look at the coverage on the nightly news, when people used to watch the nightly news, there's always going to be a murder. There's always going to be an outbreak. That's what I meant about peak cognitive bias.

And the underlying consideration is also this notion of zeroism, the notion of reducing liability to the degree that that's the most important, that's the priority, the externalities associated with that will be all kinds of anxieties, all kinds of psychological externalities, all kinds of financial externalities. And so the dangers of zeroism are something that would have to be considered. Well, most isms are bad, right? Yes, of course. I guess what I'm asking,

because I think your point, I'm really glad you're pushing me, because your mindset, I think, is interesting, and I'm not saying it's wrong, but what I would push back on you is to ask yourself, but what is the end point? Because you're saying it's a vaccine,

but listen, just because the vaccine's approved, we know that a large portion of kids aren't going to get vaccinated. No, but then what? But as long as my kids are vaccinated. Then you'll feel like, did you know that an unvaccinated child is at a lower risk than a vaccinated adult? So here's something that's always in the back of my mind. You tell me if you've heard anything about this.

I haven't really heard it discussed, but I could be totally out to lunch on this. But I know a lot of people had COVID and they got better right away, but they still had deficits in their taste and smell. Sometimes this lingers for a long time. And that's pretty common. And it occurred to me that that's some sort of synaptical connection or some sort of neurological connection which is damaged. But it's very obviously damaged because you can tell that you can't smell or taste as you used to. But what if that was cognitive?

Would you know? Could you identify permanent damage, a slight? Two IQ points. Yeah, or I'm a little more forget like. And I worry that what that tells me is that it's possible that COVID can do a certain kind of damage, which is not detectable. Or it's possible that it could... It's detectable if you're lucky enough

to have it be where you smell. But if it's just where you do math, I don't know. And I say, why do I want... I just don't want my kids to get... We have 100 years of experience with these other diseases, right? We don't have 100 years...

Well, we actually... Coronaviruses have been with us for a very long time. Coronaviruses, but not cold. But this is... This is a coronavirus. SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus. And we know... I never heard of a long, long blah, blah, blah for any other coronavirus or... Well, the common

cold is a coronavirus. Yes. That's what Trump said. It's one of them. And we, and interestingly enough, coronaviruses are generally pretty benign to kids. And this is no different, this one, fortunately. What you're saying actually makes sense, right? There could be some lingering thing. But the way I view it is, but again, you could have that from any number of serious respiratory illnesses.

And you don't have your for how old were your kids again nine nine eight and you know listen nine eight and four right so for the previous decade you weren't having your nine-year-old wear a mask all the time if for fear of if if the child got the flu that there might be a long-term sequelae because any serious illness can affect your immune system in a way and lead to some long-term consequences. But I think what Noam is saying is that COVID-19, we don't have much experience with it. And it does seem to be a little bit different. And Noam knows not one, not two, but several people with deficits in taste or smell since getting COVID.

And so he's saying to himself, this seems to be a little bit different than the viruses with which we are familiar. But that doesn't counter what Mr. Zweig is saying. It's a layer of consideration. But the externalities associated with extreme policies that aren't substantiated by data are theoretically just as negative. They're both rabbit holes. There's no way to prove either one. I pride myself on following the data. Noam's usually good about the data.

And I'm quite aware that there's a PTSD that's associated with this whole subject, which I can't wring out of my mind. I just can't. And possibly people can overreact in the opposite way, too. Why do you think so many people in Europe have such a wildly different approach to this than we do here?

I'm asking that non-rhetorically. Like, I'm curious. Like, do they... Why wouldn't they share your concerns? No, that's a totally valid point. Because I think about that all the time. Why are they approaching this with... You know, they don't want kids to die in England.

Nobody wants their kids to die. I don't even want my kids to get really sick. Even short of dying. No one wants bad things. No one wants. I got a three. No one. So I'm curious if you have, like, why is it that they're approaching it so differently?

And I'm not saying your concerns are invalid. But again, for me, it's just placing it in context with all the other risks of harm to your children. I assume your kids go in a car with you. I let my kids drive the car. I'm going to tell you, the answer to your question... You did get a Tesla with some

autopilot capability. The question you were just asking was a question that was in the bubble over my head while you were talking at some point. And I guess the answer to that is I just don't know if the European data, I mean, like, is this data from places where they had serious outbreaks like we've had? If all the parents are really, really good about wearing masks in a community, then the risk of the kids getting it is so much less. Anyway, it comes from the adult. I mean, there could be so many things. And I'll just finish by saying, in the last year, so many things have turned out to

be not as originally reported. So many things have been mistakes. I just feel like we- Playing it safe. Yeah. I feel like playing it safe for the next couple of months. My kids are not bitching about the masks. They're happy to wear them. Even my four-year-old wears it. He tolerates it fine. I'm like, well, what's to be lost? Then, well, I guess you're talking about two different things. One is, should your kids be allowed to wear a mask? Of course they should. Anyone who wants their kid to wear... But the second question is, should that be imposed on all

children? Because what if someone else has a different risk assessment? Some people take their kids, you know, hot rodding or whatever, you know, or like riding BMX, you know, bikes. Other people are like, that's too dangerous for my kid. Some people might not want their kid to swim in the ocean. Now I understand the analogy breaks down because this is a, you know, a virus that's contagious. And they're saying, well, you're not just endangering yourself, you're endangering others. But again, we circle back to all the adults have had the option to be vaccinated. Kids are at incredibly low risk relative to everyone else. It's not zero. And to my mind, if I know, if you just look that more kids die of the flu in many years, and by the way, that's in a flu season where notice how the government repeatedly talks about COVID numbers.

I know I'm going to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it's a cumulative number. It's now, what, a year and a half? Somehow we keep comparing this cumulative number to other things that are just for a particular season. I'm just saying it's worth looking at the risks of this for children in context relative to other risks that they have faced throughout time and face now. So you're mixing

two things in a certain way, which is that on the one hand, you're saying it's very, very low risk to children. So if you're going to say, well, this is nothing to worry about at all, then the mask doesn't even matter. Then the reason we don't wear masks is because you're saying it's very, very low risk to children. So if you're going to say, well, this is nothing to worry about at all, then the mask doesn't even matter. Then the reason we don't wear masks is because you're protecting against something you don't need to protect against.

I'd say it's nothing to worry about, but does it outweigh the harms of kids for a year and a half not being able to see each other's faces? Let's just say for the sake of argument, even though it may not be the case, that we don't want any kids to get COVID. Whatever the risk of COVID is, it's something we think is significant enough, we don't want any kids to get COVID. Whatever the risk of COVID is, it's something we think is significant enough. We don't want it. Right. Without getting that they don't get serious illness.

I would say that based on the fact that masks are effective in adults, significantly effective, that alone would warrant imposing it on- But when you say masks are effective, that's an adult wearing a certain type of mask. An adult might be popping into a store for 10 minutes, not in a room for seven hours. I would say, in healthcare, I would say it is worth imposing

it on all kids if we also make sure that we're doing this like adults and we use the proper masks and the proper fitting. So you want kids to wear an N95? I mean, why aren't you wearing it right now? Why aren't you wearing the N95 now? Excellent question, Mr. Juwai. If you look at the, I forget, I'm going to mispronounce her name, but Biden's press secretary. Psaki. Yeah, Jen Psaki. She doesn't wear a mask.

And there are videos, there's a zillion videos where you see these school board members talking like, oh, hold on a second. Let me take the mask off. It's so hard to speak with. But I will tell you why I'm not wearing a mask. I got a third shot of Moderna three weeks ago. Boom! This guy is like bulletproof. He's had an erection for 21 days.

He's been hard for three weeks and he's complaining about externality. And Moderna, as you know, is 95% effective against infection. Kaboom. Yeah, yeah. So everybody should get a Moderna. But again,

the data out of the UK showed that kids who are unvaccinated were at a lower risk than even vaccinated. I don't know if they compared it to like the booster. Aren't there underlying things at play here? The notion of zeroism, the notion of trying to reduce liability to the degree that, you know,

lots more children now, from what I understand, get allergies than was the case in the future because of the way they're protected by their parents. It's the hygiene hypothesis. It's the hygiene hypothesis. I mean, this is a rabbit hole of sorts. And if you look at Facebook data, young women are killing themselves at a higher rate. I mean, is it as bad as smoking to observe social media? None of this ends.

And so there's a point at which the overall cost-benefit analysis is always going to be anecdotal. You can never supply enough data to form definitive opinions around this. And you have to occupy. Mr. Zweig gets my vote. They're all out. No, I find it hard to believe that your kids would wear a mask if they were the only ones in school wearing it. In fact, I find it impossible.

And a tight fitting N95. I think you're misjudging. I mean, I've spoke to a dozen medical people, and I'm not saying you're wearing the KN85 incorrectly, but when they're worn properly, it is not comfortable. And the idea of, yeah, to wear that for seven hours a day, and again, that's why some of these studies, I think, have found that there wasn't even with 90,000 kids, they didn't find this statistically significant benefit. Now, does that mean if you jack the number up to 500,000 or a million that you'd see a benefit? Perhaps. It makes intuitive sense that masks are going to work to some extent. I'm not saying that masks don't have a value, but the questions are, are people going to comply and

wear them in the proper fashion for that duration of time? Yeah, they are. The kids do. I mean, I have a son and there are certain masks that have been approved by his school and they are, by and large, the KN95. Are they all KN95? No, but there is a list of them that are, I mean, don't shake your head. I'm shaking my head because why would they approve anything but a KN95? Because some of them have the filters, the KN95 filters inside. That's a KN95.

Okay, but. And so, yeah. If you feel confident that there will be. I think it's better than the alternative. There's a study that came out, the CDC put out, if you guys, the Marin County study out of California. And there was like this exposure in the school. All the kids were wearing masks. There was a mask mandate. They had a there was this exposure in the school. All the kids were wearing masks. There was a mask mandate. They had a HEPA

filter in the school. And guess what? The teacher wasn't vaccinated, and then it spread around. But the kids were all wearing masks. But the teacher should have to be vaccinated. So the kids got it even though they were wearing masks, I was just saying. I believe so. Yeah, so

we can, I don't, but if you look up the... That's like me doing research. Yeah, yeah, sorry. I believe so. Yeah. So we can, I don't, but if you look up, that's like me doing research. Sorry. I've got like 50 different studies. What happens to your lecture about anecdotes? Right. But that's not,

that's a study that the CDC put out that they're, but it's an anecdote of a particular classroom. That's a very good point. I think, you know what? You're welcome. I mentioned it only because the CDC puts that out as evidence. And interestingly, what they drew from that was, see, masks work,

but the mask mandate didn't work because the teacher pulled the mask down during class. So I know you're saying your kids- That doesn't work. If you pull the mask down, it doesn't work. So what I'm saying, so to me, the moral of that study, even though it's an anecdote, is that what that showed, even though the CDC said, look, masks work, is that an unvaccinated teacher pulled her mask down during class. That at a certain point, human beings, particularly children, want to see each other's faces. And I don't think there's anything I could say that would persuade you to not be nervous about your kids and say, hey, you know what? It's not a big deal. Just let them wear a mask a little bit longer.

Why not just play it safe? And that's your... Not wrong. Yeah, you're... Aren't you Jewish? What Jew doesn't think that way? So here's the interesting thing. I am like a fairly anxious, neurotic.

One of us. But when you look at the evidence from this, and then when you look at it in context from other places in the world, and look at it in context of other risks, I let my kids go swimming. They love swimming in the ocean. They'll swim in a pool. Don't really like a lake so much. And something like 700 something kids typically drown every year from swimming. We know

thousands of kids die in automobile accidents, but we all put our kids in a car, drive on the highway. There are different risks associated with everything. I'm not saying it's wildly unreasonable for you to want to say, hey, let's just play it safe until they get vaccinated. But I'm saying that doesn't necessarily align with all the other risks that are imposed on your children in their daily lives. And you let them, and that's okay. We do different things. But like, if you live in the city, I mean, walking as a pedestrian in New York City, someone gets hit by a car, what is it, every day or something. There's different. Is that true? I don't know if it's every day, but there's an enormous amount of fatalities

from people being hit by cars. And by the way... Hit by cars every day. Guess what cars have the most fatalities imposed on pedestrians? Tesla. Giant SUVs and pickup trucks,

stuff like that. So we don't say you're not allowed to drive an SUV, even though you are endangering people more than if you drove a little sedan. We do all sorts, because the argument, though, is that you're endangering other people. Hold on. We do all sorts of things that endanger other people. It's self-evident, Mr. Dwight. These people are crazy.

No, no, no, no, no, no. Of course, I've made similar arguments, or the same arguments that you're making, but I didn't make them in the same context. So, yes, all these things have risks. Now, you're always using absolute numbers, so I don't know how many events of swimming there are. Right. But that's not even my point. That's a good point. You're right.

That's a relevant point. But another point is that it's compared to what the alternative is. So, I could not ever put my kid in a car, but the idea of a life just never, transportation, this is not worth it. You're saying you have to put them in a car to go to certain places, but you don't have to have them in school without a mask. And never swimming

with that little risk. I mean, swimming is a big, big benefit and can save your life. And the illogical extreme of this is I said, well, you shouldn't eat because it's certain people die of food poisoning, but you have to eat. Right. So you have to take that risk. You're saying you don't have to wear a mask. So that's something that can be avoided. If there is a COVID and it's a short term and is a big unknown factor there,

I would still opt for wearing a mask, but you know, I'm, but I think you're going to be persuaded. So from talking to some of my sources, I think what's going on, and I'm not a prognosticator, but what they have told me is I think people are vastly misjudging when this is going to wind down. One of the people who I talk with a lot is an infectious disease specialist, and implementation is her expertise. And de-implementation is very hard to do. Once you impose certain things, it's really hard to unwind that. I think you're misjudging when the masks are just going to magically come up.

Let's say the kid vaccines are approved next week. The mask ain't coming off anytime soon after that. The mandates will remain because- But I would support you with that one. Because there's going to be a huge portion of kids whose parents refuse to get them vaccinated. There's going to be people who will say, but hey, this is only approved for age 5 to 12. What about these kids have siblings at home?

How dare you send your kid to school not wearing a mask when there are other kids who have a two-year-old sibling at home who could be infected by that? And they have an old person who lives in a multi-generational home. This is not going to end immediately. That's the same reason Noam doesn't give us more money for doing stand-up. Because he's worried that he can't dial it back. Right. So I just think there's...

Well, once he gives us a raise and then all of a sudden he has less audience members, now he's stuck giving us more money. Wages are a sticky down. A lot of this is symptomatic, too, of some underlying socioeconomic problems. But yeah, I mean, inflation is inflating away the value that people are able to create that don't own assets that aren't correlated with the...

How do we get to this? I'm just saying. I think he's talking about the comedic comedy race. Not at all. No, no, no, no, no. I'm talking about much of what's taking place politically is an argument over the symptoms of an underlying challenge. You're arguing about the paint job, and the underlying problem is that we've got a transmission issue, and the car isn't moving correctly. But anyway, we'll go back to the masks.

But Mr. Zweig is right. I've ruled. So let me say one other point about that. So I hope I, it sounds like I persuaded you a little bit looking at you. You haven't persuaded me even the slightest. And yet she's turned on nonetheless. Don't worry about that, Mr. Zweig. She puts out.

No, not persuade you to not wear masks. I'm saying the idea that they're going to like come off once the pediatric vaccines are approved. No, I don't think so. They're not. The mandates are going to be there because the same logic remains, which is they're still potentially endangering other people, endangering an elderly family member.

So COVID is endemic. It's not going anywhere. So by this logic, it's not, the masks will never come off because there's, if you always have a low level. Another risk worth faking, by the way.

Of course, I fang right now. I'll fang right now. That's reasonable. Sex without a condom. I'll put it in right now. Definitely worth it. Sorry, we dropped you guys. So if COVID becomes endemic, which most of the people I've spoken with believe it's going to be,

there is always going to be a low level of COVID in the community, including to very young people who knows when the vaccine may be approved for under age five. There's going to be elderly people that even if they're vaccinated, the protection is limited or someone who's immunocompromised. So then you have to start asking as a society, what are the burdens that we can impose on some people to protect other people? Those are interesting questions. That's the interesting question. And this is why I'm going to say something now, and hold on to your hat because you may not like it.

Permission to speak freely. I think that you've indicated here that actually you do have a strong political feeling about this. Okay. That doesn't mean that your article is wrong. I don't know if it's political. It's more of a philosophical, I suppose. You have a personal risk assessment.

And a lot of these arguments you're making reverberate with me because they're true. Noam's almost always right. You can never unwind things. Temporary measures always become permanent. That's even in a restaurant, let alone a rent control and everything we're doing. Many of those extra now is your negative. We stayed evictions and everything we're doing. Many of those extra now is your negative. We stayed evictions, and now we can't. Moratorium until January 15th.

I'm having trouble with a tenant right now. Who's going to pay the bank? And on January 15th, people are going to say, well, how can you do this? You know, so these are very, very dangerous things. Moratorium. But. Go pay your mortgage.

And I'm not saying that if you have these political beliefs, it undercuts your... I don't know if these are political, but anyway. The honesty of your research and stuff like that. But I think that it's... You have to admit that you do have a strong feeling about this more than you let on when you

introduced how you came to the article. What's with this psychoanalysis? I have a strong belief. That's a strong belief. God bless. Fully respected. Push me as hard as you can. I approach the topic, when I say apolitically, I mean, I'm not

approaching this as a Republican who's already predisposed to say, like, liberty above everything else. Fuck this. He's passionate. Can I curse on the podcast? Of course. Curse away. What I'm saying is, I voted for Bernie. Like, I am at, so,

what I'm- Communist. Right, there you go. What I'm saying is, when I say it apolitically, I meant I'm approaching the issue of looking at what I see the evidence to be,

speaking with the experts I speak with, and that, but that's different from saying that every human being has their own political philosophy on any particular issue and in life. So of course I have an opinion and any

journalist who says they don't have an opinion is lying. There's no such thing as objective journalism. Every single, just like, Oh, I've read the New York times, right? There's no such thing as an objective photograph. It depends on how you crop it, what type of like there's no everyone has a viewpoint. You can aim for objectivity. So I've approached this through a lens where I'm saying I wasn't politically motivated to support a conservative or Republican talking. I guess I'm saying I as a person who's generally a progressive on most of the social issues, I believe in most of the things that Democrats vote for and approve of. That's what I meant by approaching it. I get it. You're in very good company.

Mr. Sam Harris, Mr. Eric Weinstein. You're usually on the right side of things. Eric Weinstein, especially Brett Weinstein, especially. Conservative? Dark horse. They're smart guys. Oh, that's what I'm saying. But this ivermectin thing is nuts oh I'm not fond of your ivermectin

but if you say listen I've done a lot of research I read all the studies and I'm against mask mandates for kids that's one thing I've done all the research and I'm against

mask mandate for kids and I'm also against them read all the research and I'm against mask mandate for kids and I'm also against them because they'll never undo it and people we have to kill, it's a different picture. I think at all those are all, this is not my opinion about like unwinding interventions, this is

there are numbers of studies of people in that field who studies, they say I'll put it a third way. Maybe if you didn't have the strong feelings about these kind of, even though you voted for these kind of libertarian arguments. Not in Europe. They're incredibly progressive, and yet

they seem to share my viewpoint. That's a thing that's lost all the time. The temporary staying forever and that... They're aware of that too. Right. Well, they don't think that way in Europe. But anyway, if you didn't feel that strongly about those kind of philosophical political points, maybe when I said, well, it's just for a few months, and these people are losing their sense of smell, and we don't really know the long-term effects, and one out of 200 goes to the hospital.

Maybe it just makes sense for a few months. If you weren't armed with all that philosophical baggage against it, maybe just on the data you'd say, yeah, I guess. Well, I tried to. You follow me, right? No, this is actually an awesome conversation. I was like, why are they inviting me to the comedy? But I'd say this is fabulous because normally when people interview me,

I'm strictly talking about the evidence that I found as an investigative journalist. I'm reporting on a study. I'm reporting from talking to experts in this field. Here's what they found, et cetera. What's interesting about this is I started off talking about that, but then the conversation then segues to, well, once we know X and we agree that X exists, this is a study that shows whatever, but what do we do with that information? So that's a different question.

So as a human being, I, like everyone else, will have a feeling on what we should do, which is a different question from what does the data show? And one of the things that I'm going to write about in my book, so I'm writing a book about kids and COVID in schools. And one of the things that I think is really important- Called an abundance. An abundance of caution. Exactly.

An abundance of caution, which we've all are familiar with that phrase, is that we have to ask- And the subtitle is? We don't have a subtitle yet. Well, there's going to be a subtitle. Probably. There always is in those types of books. It's great. The subtitle is I We don't have a subtitle yet. Well, there's going to be a subtitle. Probably. There always is in those types of books. It's great.

The subtitle is Ivermectin in the Swing Scene. So sweet. A little bit, a little bit. So what I think is interesting about this conversation is we go from talking about, you know, what does the data show, blah, blah, to then, but what do we do with that information? And different people or different societies

are going to come to different conclusions about how to act upon that information. But, um, but one of the things that I think dovetails with that idea is, is mitigating a virus the same thing as human flourishing? And when you have someone like Fauci, who's, uh, are other people, you know, at this Walensky at the CDC, their goal is, is to do the maximum they can to mitigate the spread of a virus. But that's not synonymous with a flourishing society. Sometimes it is when we are presented with something that's like an emergency. Listen, when this started, I was home, I was wiping my groceries. I was like, freak. I was like, no. But then as I started, the thing that started me off on this journey was in April, the cases, they're like, we just need to flatten the curve. We need to flatten the curve. Then everything,

you know, we're just flattening the curve. I'm like, okay. And then the cases started dropping off a cliff in New York. I'm like, okay, I guess the kids are going back to school. And a friend of mine turned to me and said, no, they're not. I'm like, what do you mean? We flattened the curve. What are you talking about? I thought we flattened the curve. He's like, they're not going back. And that's when I started saying like, okay, something has changed here because that's what we were told. And then I looked and 22 countries in Europe reopened their schools.

And a month later, and then two months later, at two times, the education ministers from 22 countries got together and they said, opening our schools did not contribute to the overall caseload in our countries. And yet in America, the schools were closed. And that, to me, is their lens is one of viral mitigation, that's a different lens from a psychologist, from a pediatrician, from an economist. It's utterly different. And it's appropriate in the beginning, but you have to ask, is it not appropriate? I want to say something, too. Go ahead. Well, I will say this.

Once people write books, once you commit pen to paper and you have a book deal, who's your book deal with? It's with MIT. So there's money at stake. Once you write a book, you're locked in. So all of a sudden, I'm not saying everything you're saying isn't correct. Oh, you're saying that like I'm now compelled to. I'm saying, we've seen this time and again, once you write a book, you're locked into a point of view

and you must defend it because you can't say, you know what, now that I think of it, my book is ridiculous. You're trying to sell the book. Well, the book is answering a question. I mean, and that's-

But in other words, if no one brought up something that just completely destroys the thesis of your book- You could alter the thesis. But my thesis is- You must defend it to the death. My book is about why did America,

in particular the blue states, have such a different policy reaction to COVID for children than many of our peer countries in Europe? And how are decisions made? It's sort of an anatomy of a decision. So wherever the evidence takes me, maybe there's a good answer for it.

So I could even be agnostic and say maybe it's reasonable, but let's find out why. Why was it different here? We've got to wrap up. I want to say something. I've made your point in the following way, and you can use this if you want. Noam's been right for 20 years.

It's the first day I've seen him off his game. You've been right for 20 years. Anyway, I said this. I'm a tough match. No, you're just right. Other areas. No, shut up. Sorry.

Imagine if the status quo was the initial experience with COVID, meaning exactly like it is now, that there's this new virus out here, and almost nobody's dying from it. It's less risky to kids than the flu, and some people are asymptomatic, and there's very little hospitalization. And let's even put in all the people who are unvaccinated,

who even have that high risk. And let's say put in all the people who are unvaccinated, who even have that high risk. And let's say that was it. We said, what would we do if that was the initial reaction? What would we do? We do nothing. We would not do anything to react to a new virus, which was killing people as rarely as COVID is now currently killing people. We'd say, oh, shit, there's a new virus out there. You better kind of be careful. And that's it. We wouldn't lock down. We wouldn't be doing anything. I lived through the Hong Kong flu.

It had to be at least as bad as it is now. We didn't do anything. And certainly if you take out the unvaccinated, and just imagine only vaccinated adults. So there's a new virus that kills how many vaccinated people get killed? Almost none, right? It's limited. And almost no kids are dying. So the new virus is killing almost nobody. Right.

What should we do? We would do nothing. So you're steelmanning my argument. Yeah, I'm saying we would absolutely do nothing. But yet we backed into that situation and we can't bear to do nothing. Even though clearly we would do nothing, right? So that's kind of your point.

Correct. I think that that largely, I mean, there's other variables. When people think about it, yeah, he's got a point there. Like we're reacting very strongly to something now, which we would never react to it this way.

So here's the interesting thing. Right. There are, it depends. This is very regionally focused. If you're in Alabama, that's very different than if you're in, if you go, the CDC is a great map you can click on.

If you look from Virginia all the way up the Eastern seaboard, straight up to Maine, the cases there are roughly half of what they are, excuse me, the hospitalizations are roughly half of what they were back in like late fall and in the winter. Whereas in other pockets of the country, you know, as we know, infamously, the hospitalizations have been skyrocketing in the South, for example, in different places. So, but a regional thing around here, as you're saying, but yet kids weren't in school a year ago, yet they are now. So it's interesting that cases are, that there's not a correlation between, I think what you're saying is there's not a correlation between the risk and what the policies that are imposed. They do not necessarily go hand in hand.

But it's very difficult to look at them at a distance. I just would like to say that Waylon Jennings sort of was prophetic when he wrote, some 40 years ago now, straightening the curves, flattening the hill. Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will. That's great.

That's great. And that's... That's a wrap. That was very Norm MacDonald. Yes. Okay, we got to wrap it up. He was a great... I told you he'd be a good guest.

That was great. Who thought to contact you? we would like to wish you a happy 48 years on planet earth to our dear friend Mr. Dove Davidoff today, 48 years celebrating 48 years of complete scumbag talk about a risk I would say one other thing

if I may, sorry, squeeze in at the end. Masks, I think, are largely a distraction. The main way to help protect people are the two Vs, vaccines and ventilation.

And that schools, if you, most of Europe, they opened the windows or even sometimes just a door. And if you really want to protect kids,

just open the windows or if you're in a school. And if we could just open the windows to our mind. The two V's, the three R's. It's amazing how often that works out. The two V's. I just watched a thing on YouTube with my kids yesterday

and they talk about the toilet. It says, only the three P's. You know what the three P's are? What are they? Poo, pee, and paper. Oh, and paper. It's like, how fortunate that there's three P's. How would I explain? My kids never remember another one.

Or puke if you drink a lot. Or puke, yeah. Oh, the four P's. I mean, and you say there's no God. No, I said there is. I said there is. We don't understand him. Puke, I couldn't have thought of another thing.

And puke is one of the- Four P's. Feel free to use that. The four P's. The four P's now four where do you live Mr. Swagg we live right near each other we're in an area called the Rivertown

you might get an invitation to, Noam likes to surround himself with intellectuals and he invites them, he bribes them with free food and it works you have a salon it is a salon downstairs.

It really is. Oh, fabulous. I don't know if I make the right environment. I'm suggesting I don't know, but I know Fred Kaplan will never say no to a free meal. Oh, that's not nice. Oh, but that's him kidding around. You know I love Fred.

All right, we have to end. Yeah, well, if you come here tonight, I'll give you a ride home to Hastings. Fabulous. That's it. How old are your kids again? They are 10 and 12. 10 year old is what? Boy or girl? Boy.

Boy. You sure? Yes, I'm certain. For now. Fifth grade. Fifth grader and seventh grader. If it was a girl, I'd say maybe our kids could play together, but an older boy is not a possibility. Podcast at ComedyCellar.com for your questions, comments, suggestions, and constructive criticism.

Comedy Cellar opens seven nights a week. Shows. And also Las Vegas. We have at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. I will be there, by the way. Through November. Well, I'll be there sometime in November. Google it.

Google it. Okay, good night, everybody. Thank you. God bless, everybody.