The Megyn Kelly Show - COVID Truth on Lockdowns, Vaccines and Schools, with the Great Barrington Declaration Doctors | Ep. 34

Episode Date: December 7, 2020

Megyn Kelly is joined by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, two of the doctors behind the Great Barrington Declaration, as well as Dr. David Dowdy, to discuss all things COVID - the thinking behind the Declaration, lockdowns, "herd immunity," vaccines, schools and kids and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. I'm Megyn Kelly. Today we're talking about COVID and the vaccine and whether we should be in a lockdown between now and the time you get it. We've got some really smart and interesting doctors who have been very anti-lockdown, and they have been attacked pretty mercilessly for it, but they're very well qualified to speak about this. Their names are Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. He's a professor of medicine at Stanford, and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, who's a professor of medicine at Harvard. And they are part with another doctor who's from Oxford. These are the doctors behind the Great Barrington Declaration. They took a hard look at how we were handling COVID and came up with an alternative. What they

suggest essentially is that we protect the most vulnerable from the elderly to those who are immunocompromised for some reason, but that the rest of us go about living our lives. We can be cautious. We can wear masks, social distancing if we feel comfortable doing that. They don't necessarily think that should be mandatory, but they've taken a lot of heat for it. And now with the vaccine in sight, I'm going to ask them whether they still think this is the best method and what is the danger that we are going to go into a lockdown.

We're also going to have Dr. David Dowdy. He's an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins, who's kind of on the other side, but we're going to get both perspectives. And I think you're going to find the discussion really interesting. You know, there's been so much hypocrisy out there by these leaders, like the, whatever, the Chicago mayor, Lori Lightfoot, out there partying with the liberals after Biden and Chuck Schumer doing the same, and Nancy Pelosi at the salon, and Governor Newsom at French Laundry, along with the San Francisco mayor and the San Jose mayor.

Then there was the Austin mayor telling people stay at home from his vacation spot in Cabo. So really, you kind of want to punch a lot of these people as they tell you to stay home. But instead, we are just going to attack the logic that they are trying to push on us for these endless lockdowns. And so I think you're going to love it. Stay tuned for that. But first, let me talk to you about something flowery, something pretty and lovely called Bloomsie Box. As you know, with travel being what it is and with the COVID ramping up the cases and so on, a lot of people can't go see their families for Christmas. I'm not going to be able to see my mom for Christmas, which I just hate because she's almost 80 and I love her. And I hate that. It's

hitting her hard and me hard. But I am going to send an amazing gift to brighten up her holidays and mine too, frankly. I am going to send her flowers from Bloomsie Box. She's going to light up when she gets these things. She's going to light up when she gets these things. She's going to show it to all her friends. You can always get flowers from Bloomsie Box that are so amazing. And you can send them, actually, if you love them, to somebody every month with a Bloomsie Box subscription. So it can be the gift that keeps on giving. If you just want to brighten up a family member's day or month or week, they're better blooms.

Because they're picked, they're grown and picked locally at the farm nearby you just for you. So it winds up being like a personal one of a kind flower gift delivered farm fresh straight to your loved one. So you know how like some of these flowers die after like three days, certainly here in New York City, if you get one at the bodega down the street, it's like doesn't smell and it dies within 48 hours at the most. And you always know when someone's bought you those. These are not those. Bloomsie Box will get you actually fresh picked blooms that last. And they're gorgeous. They're incredible prices, huge selection of artisan designed arrangements, no hidden fees, no endless upsells and free shipping with a subscription. So how about that?

The good news is I got you a special discount. If you want to try these out, you know how it's like so hard in time for Christmas and the holidays to buy for some people. Here's your solution. Go to bloomsiebox.com and enter MK to get 15% off and free shipping. That's promo code MK for 15% off at bloomsy, B-L-O-O-M-S-Y, box.com. And now, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Martin Kulldorff. Thank you so much for being here and for helping us walk through this. It's a perfect time to have you since, according to what I read, things are worse than ever with this virus right

now. The headlines tell me that the pandemic is exploding. The CDC director here says the next few months, this is a quote, will be among the most difficult in public health history for the United States. The statistics are that virtually all hospitals in America, close to 90% are in hot or red zones. Same is true for nursing homes. US hospitalizations are at an all-time high, 100,000 plus. People are hospitalized, 19,000 in ICUs, 7,000 on ventilators. Those numbers sound bad. And I'm always questioning whether these are people trying to scare us or whether we genuinely should be scared. Let's start with that one. I'll start with you, Martin.

What do you think? Well, it depends on your age. One reason we have a lot of mortality is we're not doing a good job protecting the older high-risk people. There has been federal efforts to send testing to nursing homes, for example, but they're not used universally throughout the country. So we have to do a much better job protecting the nursing homes than we have been doing. And we do that by testing, frequent testing of our staff who are not already immune because they had COVID. Then we don't have to test them.

But they all should be frequently tested. Visitors should be tested because it's important for the residents to have visitors from family and friends. But yes, then we should test them. And if you're positive, you wait a few weeks before you visit them. We should have less staff rotation in the nursing homes so that each resident will interact with as few staff as possible.

So these are easy public health measures to implement, but they're not being done universally in the whole country. And that's sad. And that's one reason why we're seeing many high mortality numbers. And we should, of course, also protect all the people outside of nursing homes. And the headlines, they never talk about really the age of the people who have died. And it's not that we don't care about the elderly, but it's important to understand what the mortality rate is for people under the age of 70, right?

So what is the mortality rate for people under the age of 70? One thing that's important to realize is that anybody can get infected. So the infection can hit anybody. But in terms of mortality and serious disease, if you look at mortality, there's more than a thousand-fold difference in risk between the old and the young. So for old people, this is more dangerous than an annual influenza. But for children, this is much less dangerous than an annual influenza. And I have an 18-year-old son, he has minuscule risk and I'm much more worried when he's driving the car than I am about him getting COVID-19.

Can I jump in for that? Go ahead, Jay. There's been a whole series of studies to look at the answer to that question. From around the world, the estimate of survival rate for people under 70 is something like 99.95%. That is 99.95% of people under 70 who get infected survive. It's much higher, as Martin says, for older. So the survival rate for older people over 70 is something like 95%. And of course, it goes up by the age. And as Martin says, for children, it's much less dangerous. There are more children that have died this year of the flu in the United States than to the vaccines being announced and took all sorts of flack for

it for the same reason Scott Atlas gets flack for advising something similar at the White House. Is the paper and the position on herd immunity still relevant now that we have vaccines coming out soon? What do you think, Jay? So can I just change the question just slightly? And the position, we've never argued for herd immunity as a strategy. Actually, that doesn't make any sense in the following way. The only endpoint of this epidemic, no matter what we do, is herd immunity. That's not whether we adopt the current policy or we change the policy to one when we suggest in the Great Parenthood question, we just want to focus protection, that's the end point of the epidemic.

So in a sense, our opponents have used this idea of herd immunity to scare people, when in fact, the current policy we're following is essentially is aiming at herd immunity. The only alternative to herd immunity is zero COVID, and that's impossible. So the real question is, what do we do in the meantime? What do we do between now and the end of the epidemic, which is herd immunity? The current policy says, let's have these massive lockdowns, which have harmed people. I mean, we could talk extensively about this, and I hope we will, at both their health, economically, of course, but also their health, and not just people in the United States, but worldwide. I mean, the UN estimates that as a result of the lockdowns, there'll be almost 130

million additional people who will be at risk of starvation this year, 80 million children die of poverty worldwide. And the United States skipped medical treatments that will result in higher death rates from cancer for women and men. So I think the question is, what do we do now? Not what the endpoint of the epidemic is. Herd immunity is the endpoint of the epidemic. The current policy of the lockdown is hurting many, many, many people. In many ways, creating more death and suffering for people around the world, from non-COVID sources.

And ironically, it's also damaging COVID. I think we would have less death. The policy we put forward in that declaration, that Great Barrington Declaration, was of focused protection. The idea is, and you heard it in Martin when he spoke, the idea is to devote overwhelming resources to protect the elderly. That's the declaration and other people with the chronic disease. So I'll give you an example of where we failed in this policy, where we failed with our current policy. We have workers, let's say you're a 64-year-old diabetic and you happen to work at a grocery store. Well, you're deemed essential and there's absolutely

no protection for you. We ask you to go out and be exposed to the virus because you're an essential worker. And we say, look, you're who we ask to go take the risk of the virus. The current policy is one of enormous inequality. And I think that's mainly what's driven our thinking in the Great Bank Declaration. Let's change the policy to follow the science. And the science says, we know who's vulnerable, older people, people with certain chronic conditions. Let's think creatively about how to protect them. And for the rest of the population, the lockdowns are way more harmful, both to health and psychological health and other aspects of life. Is that still relevant now that we have the, because, you know, it feels like we can see the end, that the vaccines, they say by May, we should all, not all, but virtually all have it, have the vaccine. They're going to start with the most vulnerable, the elderly, well, the first responders get it first. And so given that, should we be thinking about this? Should we still be trying to avoid lockdowns?

Absolutely. Because as I said, the lockdowns have been harmful to the health of non-vulnerable people. On net, the lockdowns are harming. Let me give you one other number. In June this year, one in four young adults, 18 to 24, seriously considered suicide. One in four. You can see everyone who knows anybody in the United States, actually anywhere in the world, understands the psychological damage caused by these lockdowns, the isolation, the stress. It's not surprising that we see numbers like this. You asked about the vaccine. The vaccine is actually a perfect mechanism for focus protection. The CDC just said that they're going to prioritize elderly people for the

vaccine. That is exactly the right strategy. Use the vaccine to protect people who are, we know, to be at high risk. And for the rest of the population, the lockdowns are more harmful than the disease. So in other words, you feel like now more than ever, your strategy makes sense because we're about to vaccinate the most vulnerable, thus protecting them and more justification for getting the young people, the healthy people back out there living their lives. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly right. I mean, I, I, I mean, I, I personally have an 80 year old mother, uh, who I, I, I've told she needs to isolate because I don't want her to get sick

because she would be at high risk if she were to get sick. Uh, I have, uh, uh, a 19 year old, uh, daughter, 13 and 15 year old sons. I want them to live their lives that we've, they've, they've been harmed by this, this lockdown in ways that are impossible to replace or fix. Um, I want them to live their lives. They've been harmed by this lockdown in ways that are impossible to replace or fix. I personally, I'm 52. I mean, my risk is moderate, but I would willingly take the risk so I could go teach in person again, because I like seeing my students. We have to understand the risk is very, very different and react appropriately. You started the conversation with a question about panic and fear. We shouldn't be living in panic and fear. We should be thinking about what the risks actually are and live reasonably in the face of them. But we seem to be getting back to that. You've got the California

governor, the New York governor issuing shutdown orders. You've got L.A. issuing some some pretty stern stay at home orders, you know, really scaring people about what's going to happen if numbers go up. And the question is whether we should be listening, whether they should be doing that, whether we should be listening as the CDC tells everyone, stay at home, don't travel for Christmas. Again, we're hearing we need to quote, bend the curve. So do you guys agree with that, Martin? We're doing exactly the same mistake as we did in the spring, and which led to far too many deaths of COVID-19. And it's doing the opposite of what we should do. So in many places, the schools are closed, even though the COVID-19 poses no risk to the children, as well as teachers don't having any higher risk than other professions by being teachers. So they're not at high risk either. So we're really hurting the kids here by keeping the schools closed.

At the same time, we are not properly protecting older people in nursing homes, for example. So why are we testing children in schools and university colleges who don't need to be testing? There's no public health reason for that. At the same time as we are not doing proper testing

in all the nursing homes. So in some nursing homes, so one thing that Scott Atlas has done very good during his short tenure in the White House was to really push better testing for old people so that the nursing home had access to that. And that's being done in some parts of the country, like Florida, for example. But the other places that are still not testing, nursing home staff frequently, and they should be tested now during the height of transmission at least three times a week and maybe more.

You don't think the goal should be close the restaurants, close the bars, don't travel, don't go to college, don't mingle because even getting COVID is really not that scary a proposition for the vast majority of people. And even with a vaccine on the horizon, people don't need to be so freaked out

about the possibility of getting it unless they're in the high risk group. Correct. So we should put all the resources to protect those older people, which we're not doing properly. So that's very, very unfortunate. And we have to do a better job protecting them.

Instead, we are putting the resources on protecting people who don't need to protect it like school children they need education not for just for educational needs but also for physical health mental health and social development and that's long-term damage that we're doing to our children and we should never as a country put the burden on children who are not at risk here. We should always take care of our children and let them go to school and let them live normal lives. In Sweden, they kept the schools open during the spring for ages 1 to 15. And there were 1.8 billion children in this age group and exactly zero died from COVID-19. And there were only a few hospitalizations among children.

So we should not hurt the children that we're doing right now by closing the schools. You know what they say? They say, but the children will bring the infection. They'll bring the virus home to an elderly grandparent or someone else that they're near. And so what we've been told is the children have to be making this sacrifice for older people in the community. What do you think of that? I don't think any old person wants their grandchildren to make such a sacrifice. And we are, it is possible to protect old people. Also, the old people are not so much at risk from

the children. We know that from studies, they are at risk from working age adults. That's the ones who are giving them COVID. So they need to be protected from working age adults. And we can do that by not having them go to the grocery stores to buy food, for example. I see all people in the grocery stores and they should not be there. They should still see friends and family because that's important, preferably outdoors. But if not that possible, their friends and family should be tested. But older people should not be out mingling in crowds. What about the schools?

Because the ones that are open, thankfully, still have really strict restrictions in place. I mean, the kids, I've got three little kids, and I know just from their schools, there's a six-foot distancing required for every child. My daughter, she's not allowed to speak during lunch. The children may not speak because they're worried about air coming out of their mouth and projecting on other children. So they have to, they put on a movie. All the kids, if they have a recess, they have to wear their masks as they run around for PE, which our pediatrician said could raise some health issues that he doesn't like. We're grateful that they're in school,

but I do worry about, A, the psychological scare to kids and having to behave like this, and B, whether any of this is really necessary, those restrictions I just mentioned. What do you think, Jay? I think the restrictions on our school kids are, I mean, I don't have the language to express how unhappy I am about them. There was a recent study done, published in the Journal of American Medical Association Open Network, which is a prominent medical journal, estimated that the schooling loss for kids just from the spring, with the cutting down of in-person learning, will lead to five and a half million lost life years for our kids. Because you miss school, you think that's just a small thing, but it's not. It has knock-on consequences through the

whole rest of your life. People make decisions based on what they've learned in school, and that has consequences for their health. Less well-educated kids lead sicker, shorter lives. Five and super spreaders that they've been made to be in the press. In fact, they are much more likely to get the disease from parents and others than they are to spread the disease to the teachers, for instance. Our schools should be open. As Martin said, the schools are open in much of the world through much of the epidemic. France has kept its schools open despite the rise in cases on the basis of this very strong scientific evidence that it's safe. And as far as like the kinds of restrictions you're talking about, that doesn't sound like, I mean, school also is not just about education. It's about socialization, learning skills to interact with

people. Instead, we're creating this environment, even in schools that are open up for in-person learning, of fear. I mean, we should be talking to kids. We should be teaching our kids the way we normally teach our kids, even better than we normally teach, I think. But certainly not the kind of environment you're talking about. I think that is not warranted, given what we know from scientific evidence. Yeah, those restrictions are nonsense. And there's absolutely no public

health rationale for them. And we have to look at it scientifically. And again, to do that, we need to look at Sweden again, who kept the schools open in the spring during the height of the pandemic. And where there was no deaths, that was accomplished by having no testing in the schools, no children was tested, there were no masks, there were no social distancing. The two things they did was when a child is sick, has symptoms like a cough or a runny nose, they were told to be home. And there was no citywide or schoolwide big gatherings like in the cafeteria with hundreds of kids. The kids stayed with their 20, 25 people in the classrooms. So that's what Sweden did without any of those restrictions. And it did perfectly fine with zero deaths among the children. So these restrictions are not based

on public health. They are based on politics. Yeah. And fear, like the fear, forgive the term, but people call it COVID porn, you know, where people just, they play up the newspapers, play up the number of deaths without context, how the infection rate without context. And people believe that this is potentially deadly for everyone who gets it. Meanwhile, it's virtually not at all for children. There's only been a handful of cases. And they've been really rare. And there's still questions, as I understand, about whether they really are COVID related.

More with Jane Martin in just one minute. But first, the holiday season is about celebrating and spreading joy to those we love, our friends, family, neighbors, and even our pets. That amount of joy can require a lot of online holiday shopping. Have you been doing it? Me too.

And the more you do it online, like gift giving, banking, browsing, the more you potentially expose your personal information, which makes you more vulnerable to cyber criminals. Yes, you need to think about Santa and cyber criminals at the same time. Now is the time to think about your cybersecurity with all of the all-in-one protection of Norton 360 with LifeLock that's available to you. This is the easy way to keep your busy digital life safer in one easy place. You can get powerful protection for your devices like your laptops, your tablets, your phones, a VPN for your online privacy, and LifeLock identity theft protection that alerts you to

potential identity threats. No one can prevent every cybercrime and every identity theft or monitor every single transaction at all businesses. But Norton 360 with LifeLock gives you a running chance. They can help keep your holidays happy with powerful protection against cybercriminals. Save 25% or more off your first year at norton.com slash mk. That's norton.com slash mk to save 25% off. Let's talk about Sweden. Is your approach the same, your recommended approach,

this sort of focus protection, the same as what Sweden did? It's not exactly the same because Sweden, as many other countries, has not done a good enough job protecting the old people. So in that sense, it's not the same. On the other hand, it is the same in the sense that schools should be open like they were in Sweden, and they still are open in Sweden for this age group. So in that sense, it's the same. I know Sweden's getting criticized, and I never know what to believe,

because I know the mainstream media is rooting against Sweden. I mean, they just are. They have a dog in this hunt, weirdly. And so every report I get out of them about the Sweden numbers is it's failing, it's failing, it's failing. And their numbers are much higher than these other Nordic countries that had more restrictive approaches and lockdowns. And I guess Sweden itself has admitted that it should have done more to protect the elderly in sort of these long term care facilities, which I think everyone is seeing. But what do you think? Has Sweden been a successful experiment? Well, I don't think it's an experiment. I think the lockdowns are an unsuccessful experiment. But Norway also didn't have much lockdown. So it's in the sense that they are very similar to Sweden.

And in Sweden, it's Stockholm that had high rates, but the rest of Sweden has been pretty low. And if we look at it now, Sweden had more cases than some other European countries in the spring, not as bad as New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, much less than that, but they had higher rates than many other European countries. But then now in the fall, it's instead lower than most other European countries. So what the lockdown did in the fall, it's instead lower than most other European countries. So what the lockdown did in the spring was sort of, in certain places, was sort of postponing the problem until now in the fall. Actually, can I return to that about the lockdown and the deaths that are associated with the lockdown? And one of the things that we realized about the lockdown is that the economic dislocation caused by it actually creates danger, right? So, so many young people lose their jobs, go back, live at home with older parents or even grandparents. Now you've created this danger of this mixed environment where the young person

gets sick, they're probably going to be fine, but they might pass the disease on to an older person because they're living in close proximity. We close universities and send our kids home to live with their older parents. Again, you've created this sort of intergenerational mixing that otherwise wouldn't be taking place. These lockdowns, they themselves create disease spread risk exactly where you don't want it. It's because they're untargeted and naive about who's actually a danger that I think we're really opposed to it. It doesn't make sense from an epidemiologic point of view to create that kind of mixing when in just normal course of life, you wouldn't have it.

It's crazy how strict they've been on college students. Some college students have been expelled from their universities because they were found not socially distancing properly or not quarantining exactly the right number of days. I mean, they are treating these guys like they have contracted the plague and have placed the entire community at great risk of death if they violate any of these rules, which as you point out, may not even be based in science. Why is that? Is that a media creation? What do you guys think, having studied it? I mean, I think it's the result of fear and a lack of creative thinking about what

does work and what doesn't work. I mean, I think for college students, I completely agree with you. It is absolutely, what we've done is just an enormous mistake. Public health should never create a situation where we shame people. health should never create a situation where we shame people. It should never create a situation where we guilt people who get sick. We should be providing compassionate care to people like that. Give people good tools to make good choices, not create this atmosphere of shame and recrimination. I mean, I think back to an early story from the epidemic uh i think it was the air force academy where they uh they sent home most of the classes and they kept the seniors and but basically required the seniors to to uh in to live in basically solitary confinement more or less during the spring whether

you know the food would be delivered to them but they really just interact with people via zoom and not much else two of those two of those seniors committed suicide, right? The psychological stress from that kind of isolation, from the recrimination of if you violate the rule, you're guilty of harming so many people. All of that leads to enormous psychological stress. I know there's suicides in universities now that are happening around the country because of these rules. The lockdowns in these universities are not actually helping our students and it's not actually helping disease control. We should instead be giving our students good information about how to protect themselves and others. But for the most part, the main thing

is to not interact with older people if they actually are they if they actually are at, you know, with with symptoms with other other kinds of conditions that might make them think that they are have the disease, give testing for them so that they, you know, the testing actually is interesting thing, too. We link these tests to public health reporting. So all of a sudden, now, you get a test to see if I can go visit my grandma. Now it's a public event. If I'm positive I'm going to get a two-week quarantine, a lot of people think to themselves, well, do I really want to risk the two-week quarantine? I think I'll just go visit grandma without a test. We should be allowing people to privately get tested and then let them make good decisions. I mean, they don't want to infect grandma. I don't want my mom infected. If I can take a test privately known positive,

I won't go visit her. That's a really good point because I can tell you, just in our community that we go to over the summer in New Jersey, we actually had a very fortunate summer where it seemed the infection rate in our community was very low. We had a day camp open for the kids. But one college guy got COVID and had no symptoms whatsoever throughout his entire time with COVID. But he just had the good fortune of getting tested and saw that he had it. So, you know, he left and quarantined. But the shame, the shame that was and this kid did everything right. He found out a friend had tested positive. He went, he got tested. He had it. He quarantined immediately. But I mean, he was outed. People somehow found a way of looking at him like

he'd done something irresponsible. And it became like a scarlet letter. And of course, everyone else in the community is like, well, I'm not saying if I get it, like, I'm just going to go underground for two weeks or, you know, there has still been a shame attached to it as though you've done something wrong, if you get it. It's a virus. We have very incomplete measures available to protect ourselves from it. We shouldn't be shaming people who happen to get it. I mean, you can take all the measures you like and you might still get it.

I mean, I thought we'd learn from the HIV epidemic in public health to not shame, rather to provide resources and care for people who get sick. I mean, it's an enormous step backwards. In Scarlet Letter, that's exactly the right, I mean, I've often thought about this as like the Scarlet Sea, right? Oh, I got the coronavirus. It's an enormous mistake, Megan. And I think it's a mistake that we in public health are going to regret because it's hard to ring that bell.

Just to round back to the discussion on schools, here in New York City, our mayor, in whom no one has any faith, he closed the schools. And then after public pressure reared its head, he said, Okay, I'll open up the elementary schools. And meantime, it seems like all the data is the schools are safe, and you can open them up. But But a lot of these officials are drawing the line between elementary schools, lower schools and middle school and high school. And to your point about suicide rates and depression, I mean, who is at greater risk of depression than young teenage boys in particular, but also girls. I worry about the high schoolers and the middle schoolers. They need socialization and connection probably even more than the

littles. And they've been like, I know a lot of friends who have teenagers who are really sullen, withdrawn, depressed at not having seen their friends. So is there something to this distinction? These officials are drawing between the littles and the middle school and high school. I think school should be open for all children. As you say,

that is very important for high school kids with the socializations. I mean, the distinction is that a small child can need some kind of care by an adult. So if the parents are working, then they need to go with the grandparent. And that's not the best solution, while a teenage can stay at home alone. So that's the only sort of logistic restriction. But you're right that this is very tragic for teenagers and high school students as well as university students. So we should open immediately all schools for in-person teaching.

Okay, let's talk about the vaccines. Because you tell me, but to me, these seem like miracles. I mean, 95% effective, at least three companies so far saying they've got it Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, I you know, that millions and millions of doses available this month, December, we assume if they get approved here in the United States, the way we've seen in Britain, it seems wonderful. I only hope it's true. Are you guys as optimistic about the vaccines? I'll ask you that one, Martin. So the scientists have done a fantastic job developing vaccines. So they deserve a big feather in the hat for doing that.

So far, we've only seen the press releases for the companies. And for Pfizer, for example, which I think was just approved in the UK, we still haven't seen the actual data, but on December 8th, FDA is planning to release that data. So that's when we really know what is the efficacy and safety of this vaccine. And that's when we can sort of judge it,

how good it is. And for what groups it might be more have more efficacy versus less efficacy yeah AstraZeneca is saying that it may be able to produce 200 million doses worldwide by the end of 2020 so that would be I mean that's not just America of course but that would be spectacular and then the other two are saying that I guess 40 million doses so 20 million people could be helped by the end of December. Because I actually didn't realize this, but you had to have two shots, whether you get the Pfizer or the Moderna or the AstraZeneca vaccine. Johnson & Johnson is reportedly testing a one-dose vaccine. The one, especially from Pfizer, requires super, super cold storage at something like

minus 90 Fahrenheit temperature. So it's a little inconvenient. Johnson & Johnson is working on one that doesn't require that. Moderna doesn't require as much of the cold. So everyone's sort of coming up with something that's slightly different. But let's start with this. Do you believe that they're going to be safe?

And would you take it? What do you think, Jay? I mean, I think, as Martin said, we do need to wait for the safety data to be publicly released so that folks can scrutinize it carefully. I would absolutely tell my mom to take it first because she's at the highest risk. I personally probably would take it, again, depending on what the safety data show, because my risk is moderate.

But for my kids, I think that the vaccine, well, again, we have to look at the safety data. I wouldn't prioritize children for the vaccine. It's not like a disease like the measles where the vaccine for kids really makes much better sense than actually getting measles, which would be deadly. Here for kids, it's much lower risk to get COVID. They get much milder disease and die at lower rates. More kids have died of the flu this year than COVID. So I think for kids, I think it's a completely different question. So we have to look at the safety data, but the standard for the safety data that we hold for children, we should expect a much, much, much lower serious adverse event risk for children before we require children

to have it. They haven't tested on children either. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's going to be so I think for that, I think some folks have argued that we should make the vaccine mandatory. And I think I'm very firmly against that. I think here, what we have to do is we have to understand who's at risk, we shouldn't be asking people, we mostly when we ask people to take vaccines, it's because it's good for you to take the vaccine, right? We say, you know, you take a measles, mumps, and rubella for your kids because it's good for your kids to have that shot because measles, mumps, and rubella are terrible diseases if their kids were to get it. We shouldn't be asking people to take a vaccine if it's on net bad for them.

So for my mom, 80 years old, she should take it. Absolutely. I mean, assuming that the data come out the way I anticipate, because it's better for her to have the vaccine than COVID. Much better. Again, assuming the data come out the way we anticipate. For me, it's a closer thing. And for my kids, it's not a close thing, I think, based on what I've seen. That's kind of a scary thought, because if they make it mandatory, and we know that they haven't tested these vaccines on children, given the ethical concerns of doing that, I guess one of

the companies is starting to test kids over 12, but the littles have not been tested at all, nor have pregnant women. And if these schools in particular say it's mandatory, as they do with a lot of these vaccines, for your kid to get the vaccine before he or she can return, parents are in a bit of a pickle there, right? Because we don't have the data to assess, is it safe? And is it worth it? Martin should probably answer this, because he's one of the world's experts on vaccine safety. But this is one of these things where the data should drive our decision making. And as far as making it mandatory, I've even seen proposals to say, look, unless you're vaccinated, you should you should not be able to work. You know, you

should like I think those are enormous mistakes from a public health perspective and based on what the what the what I anticipate the vaccine will show in the science. And what do you think, Martin, would you get the vaccine? And do you think that that it should be mandatory for anyone's children or otherwise? No, I don't think it should be mandatory for anyone except possibly for hospital and nursing home workers. If they want to work in such a setting, I think it's reasonable to have it mandatory for them, but not for anybody else. And I think it has to do with the trust in public health. So these lockdowns have created a huge problem that we're going to live with for many years now with the distrust between the public and the public health officials.

And I fully understand the rational, it is very rational, I think, for the public to distrust the public health officials after this public health disaster. But the other issue is that public health officials do not trust the public. And that is a serious problem in public health. If you want to do successfully in public health, you have to trust the public. Otherwise, you're going to fail. And mandating vaccines means you're not trusting the public. And then the public is not going to trust the public health officials. And there will be less vaccinations.

There are more people refusing it. We've already seen some of that in the way people are reacting to Dr. Fauci. You know, I think he's universally beloved by most Democrats, and he's not as beloved by the other half of the country, notwithstanding the fact that he's

one of Time's People of the Year. What do you think of Dr. Fauci and how he's handled this? He's very against the Great Barrington Project, I know, Martin. So Dr. Fauci is an esteemed immunologist, but in infectious diseases, there are different areas of expertise. So if you develop a vaccine, you have to know about virology and immunology, for example.

If you're going to treat patients, you have to know how to treat people, what are the medications to use for infectious diseases. But if you want to decide how to deal with a pandemic at the population level, then you need to know about infectious disease outbreaks and how they operate in society and how it's spread from person to person, sort of the population dynamics. And you need to know the infectious disease epidemiology. And that's something that I have been studying for many decades, but it's not an area of expertise of Dr. Fauci. So it's surprising to me that he makes such statements on the epidemiology of the pandemic,

which, to be honest, he has made a number of erroneous statements on this aspect. So that reduces the trust in public health again when people hear that and then they realize that that was wrong. I mean, I think on the Great Barrington Declaration in particular, I think he just doesn't understand it. I mean, he said he's characterized it as a strategy of letting it rip. And you can hear from our conversation that is very, very far from what we are proposing to do. We do not want to let the virus rip through the population. That is just a complete mischaracterization.

And, I mean, in a way, it makes me really sad because I do respect him as a leader in immunology. And so to hear him mischaracterize these ideas, which are involved protecting vulnerable people and thinking carefully about the harms of the lockdown, and what that implies for white policy is just, I think it's just a great mistake on his part. And as Martin says, it sort of undermines trust in public health. Actually, one thing I've noticed in his thinking is that he really does seem to be blind to the harms of the lockdown. I mean, we've talked about the depression, we've talked about starvation in developing countries as a consequence of the economic damage from the lockdown. We haven't talked so much, but there are also medical damage from people delaying cancer care because people are more scared of COVID than cancer. I mean,

I think all of these harms should enter into our policy calculus. And when Dr. Fauci talks, I never hear him thinking about those harms in a way that's meaningful. No, what's happened between him and the media is just more shaming of anybody who pushes back against the narrative that the only thing we need to be focused on is curbing the spread of this virus. And, you know, even if that costs millions of people, their jobs, their businesses, their careers, the ability to put food on their tables. I mean, the reports have been totally heartbreaking of what the lockdowns have done when there really are questions. You know, we were told last March,

two weeks to bend the curve and the American public did it. They did as they were told. Now here we are in December and they're saying the same thing, the CDC, we need to bend the curve. Meanwhile, people's lives have been ruined. They've been ruined. And when somebody like you guys comes forward and says, here's a possible other approach that takes both problems into consideration, what do we see? More shame. Same as they've dumped on Scott Atlas, who I think has been really brave in all of this. Shame. They describe him as disgraced. He's at your institution, Stanford, Jay, right? I mean, what do you think about how they've responded to anybody who pushes back against the Fauci narrative, like you guys, like Scott? I mean, I think the response of the scientific community, I mean, in one sense has been amazing, as we talked about it for the vaccine, but in another sense, it's been utterly shameful. I think we've seen in a way that I never anticipate seeing, you know, I've been a scientist in medical school for 20 years on the faculty. I never thought I would see the day where there would be active measures to try to suppress

a point of view in a scientific discussion the way that they've done with Dr. Atlas. And I think for science, we're going to have to think carefully about how really to go forward. We've, there's another very famous professor at my institution, Dr. Johnny Unides, he's, he's made YouTube videos, talking about the pandemic that have been censored, removed off, you know, one of the top scientists in the world thinking about the most important problem in public health, and those views are censored. You can't have a science when people can't talk openly about the disagreements over important facts. It's not science. It's just one view dominating with absolutely no possibility of being questioned. That's not science. That's

something else. We're seeing it more and more, and not just when it comes to COVID, when it comes to transgender identification and things like that, the rejection of science in favor of what's considered to be politically correct is really getting dangerous. A couple of questions before I let you go. They say they don't know whether these vaccines stop the virus from infecting you or whether they just stop you from experiencing the virus. You don't get any symptoms. And if it's, if you have the virus and you're still shedding the virus, even though you may not be suffering from the virus, then the vaccine they're saying is potentially less, uh, exciting than, than the other way. So number one, do you think that that means

we're farther away from being able to take off these masks and stop socially distancing? And number two, either way, when do you think we're going to be able to take off these masks and stop socially distancing? Martin? So it's true that we don't know those things about the vaccines yet. And also they have been evaluated based on symptoms rather than mortality, for example. So there's a lot left to learn about these vaccines

in the coming months and years. But what is important is as long as there's some efficacy and good safety, they can be used as part of a focus protection strategy where we protect all the people, whether it's because we are protecting the old people, but when they get vaccinated, or whether we protect them by having the nursing home staff and healthcare personnel being protected. Now, in terms of the social distancing, we should end immediately, no matter how good

the vaccines are, because of all the collateral damage they're causing on public health with the falling child immunization rates, worse cardiovascular disease outcomes, worse cancer outcomes, worse diabetes care, and deteriorating mental health. We have to do think about that collateral damage and end the lockdowns for children and young people. And Martin, do we have any idea how long the immunity will last and whether this will be something we need to get annually, you know, like the flu vaccine? From the vaccine, we do not know, but we should not compare it to the influenza vaccine because the influenza comes with a new

strain each year. So there's no reason to believe that coronavirus will behave in the same manner, but we don't know if we need, for example, a booster shot five, 10 years from now from the vaccine. That we don't know. The natural immunity, we know there's good natural immunity because there's been very few reinfections. But also, we don't know if that lasts for a lifetime or probably not. But even if it doesn't, then when you get it a second time, maybe 10, 15, 20 years down the road, you will expect it to be milder because you still have some help from the immune system, even though you might still get it a second time.

So just to round back, exit question for both of you. What's your prediction on when we get back to normal, to something resembling very closely normal. Jay? I mean, I think if we use the vaccine correctly, we could get back to normal within two months, right? So if we have, let's say, 50 million people vaccinated who are at the highest risk, at that point we can open society up, right?

And because the logic is the harms from the lockdown to the rest of society is worse than the disease. And the people who are vaccinated are protected. I think we could get back to normal in two months. If we continue to follow this policy we're currently following of lockdown after lockdown after lockdown, we will be doing this for another year or two. I agree with that. Schools should open immediately. But then after the older people have been vaccinated and they're caretakers, then the older people can also go back to normal, hopefully in about a couple of months.

I wonder, it's one of the questions that we don't have an answer to, but how the presidential election is going to play in here. If Trump had won, when the race was still in front of us, the election was still in front of us. There was definitely a disincentive for some of these Democratic governors to ease up on the fear factor. And now that it looks like it's Biden, maybe they will. Maybe they'll get closer to reality and listen to guys like you

about the damaging effect of these lockdowns and finding a way forward. I don't know. They may be too addicted to the porn. Listen, I really appreciate your honesty and your scientific approach. It's been important for people like me who are genuine truth seekers and not trying to maneuver anything with an agenda on this. I really just want to know the truth. So thank you for your courage in the face of a lot of pushback. I appreciate it. Thank you for having us, Megan.

Our thanks to Jane Martin. A lot of brainpower on the show today. Up next, Dr. David Dowdy joins us. He's from Johns Hopkins. He has a bit of a different take, but you'll find it interesting where they overlap and agree. We got you covered on COVID and what's about to come. But first, I want to talk to you about Legacy Box. This is a safe and affordable way to digitally preserve all your home movies and photos that are currently trapped on dated formats like VHS or film or Betamax. Are you one of those people? What products have you been eyeing with the hope that they would go on sale during Black Friday or Cyber Monday? Did Legacy Box make your short list? Well, it should have. Is there anyone on your list who's difficult to shop for? Yes, 100%. Now's the time to go to Legacy Box. It's the perfect gift for the pickiest

of people. This is what you should do. You've got to call them up or go online, get them to send you the Legacy Box. When you're, you know, you got a minute, you fill it with the pictures of the videotapes or the slides that you want digitized, and then they will send it back to you. You see, and then you can reclaim all the priceless footage that you haven't been able to see in years. What a nice gift that would make. Think about it like your mom or I don't know your brother who wants to see a slide photos when he went on that safari. It couldn't be simpler. You use their kit to safely send the moments in that you want preserved. Their team does it all by hand, creating a digital archive. And then you receive your new copies stored in the cloud or a thumb drive or a DVD along with all of your originals. They don't keep those. With their tracking system,

you can monitor every single step of the process. You always know where your originals are and who's messing with them. And just know you're in good company because over the past 10 years, Legacy Box has helped close to 1 million families restore and protect their most cherished moments. This is the best deal of the year, folks. Go to legacybox.com slash MK to take advantage of this limited time offer and get 60% off the best deal of the year. This exclusive offer will not last long, so order the kit now, send it in whenever you're ready, but don't delay.

This is a sale to remember. Legacybox.com slash MK to save 60% off while supplies last. That's a good one. All right, now, before we get to Dr. Dowdy, we're gonna bring to you a feature that we call You Can't Say That, and you know why, because we live in America now where everything must be offensive. No one, as it turns out, is immune from being silenced by the

wokesters on the far left, not even liberal icon Barack Obama. Yes, it's true. So in a recent Snapchat interview on his endless book tour, the former president was asked about the very unpopular policy of, quote, defunding the police, right, which even Al Sharpton has ripped as making no sense. And even places like Minneapolis that actually tried to enact it promptly had to reverse their policies because a lot of people are getting hurt. Right. But some people refuse to listen. Nonetheless, here's what Barack Obama had to say about it. You can use a snappy slogan like defund the police, but you know, you've lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less

likely that you're actually going to get the changes you want done. The key is deciding, do you want to actually get something done or do you want to feel good among the people you already agree with? Sounds pretty accurate to me. But for the woke left, this is unacceptable. The squad, you know, the squad, they started tweeting about it. But for the woke left, this is unacceptable. The squad, you know, the squad, they started tweeting about it. And then the media, of course, jumped in with their pushback. The most ridiculous had to be from Jezebel, which you could say pretty much every day about Jezebel and their reaction to everything, which actually wrote a column titled, Hey, Obama, some people actually do want to defund the police. But it was their tweet about the story

that was the best. They actually tweeted out the following. Now we're supposed to take unsolicited slogan edits from a man whose most memorable presidential campaign slogans were the wildly creative zingers change. And yes, we can. Sure. OK, so the Jezebel folks know better than Obama what kind of slogans work in motivating the American people, right? The most popular Democratic politician in decades. He won the presidency twice by wide margins, but Jezebel knows better. And they're mad. They're mad at Barack Obama. Let's see how that works out. So Barack Obama, who dared to say defund the police is a stupid slogan. Okay, that's my editorializing, but he did say it was unpopular. It defeating. Just so you know, Barack Obama, you can't say that. Oh, wait, this is America.

Dr. David Dowdy, thank you so much for being here. Okay, so let's talk about this notion. What what the great Barrington doctors are saying right now is that we, they're not really pushing exactly for herd immunity, but what they're saying is what we don't want is another lockdown. The costs are too high and the benefits are too low. And that what we really need to focus on, including over the next six months as the vaccine rolls out, is protecting the elderly, the first responders, frontline workers, and people who are immunocompromised in some way. And that the rest of us, people under the age of 60, people who are well, should go

about living our lives the way we want. And the combination of those two things, as we vaccinate the people who are most at risk, plus the rest of us just out there living our lives, is what will give us true herd immunity in the most helpful and healthy way. What do you think? Well, thanks again for having me, Megan. And I think this is a great discussion. I think that many of us are in agreement with the idea that what we don't want are more lockdowns. And also that the people most in need of protection

are those at the greatest risk of getting very sick and dying of this disease, including the elderly and those with other immunocompromising conditions. So I think there's no disagreement there. I think that the one point of disagreement is how to best go about protecting those that are the most vulnerable. And I would argue that it's important to keep the transmission levels of this virus at a manageable level in order to prevent transmission to those who are the most vulnerable.

And so I'd be a little concerned about the idea of just letting everyone else go back to life as normal. I don't think we want to go back to lockdowns. I think that we can be smart about how we manage this disease. But if we just let transmission go haywire over the next few months until we have a vaccine that's widely distributed, I worry that that's also going to increase the risk to those at greatest risk of death and long-term consequences. But what about if we have a situation where the vaccine's being doled out to first responders, healthcare workers, and elderly, beginning in nursing homes and then so on from there over December, January. Let's hope that the timeline is that

short. Then doesn't it make some sense for the rest of us? For example, I'm 50 now, as of a couple of weeks ago, and I'm healthy. I don't have any of these underlying conditions. I don't feel threatened by this disease. I know that it can potentially kill people, but for people in my age group and my risk group, you have a 99.95% chance of surviving it. And so I don't know, like I would feel comfortable going out if maybe what's wrong with having people like me, people like you out there wearing our masks even, but we're opening the schools and we're opening the restaurants, we're opening the bars at full know, we wash our hands still. It's not like we're trying to get it. But what's wrong with doing that while the most vulnerable are getting vaccinated?

Right. So I think this is a great question. And this is really, I think, the area of debate. And and I think that there are many reasonable considerations and perspectives on this. My personal perspective is that if you are going to a bar or a restaurant that's at full capacity, even if you're wearing a mask, you're coming into contact with 50, 100 other people in a time span of maybe an hour. Yes, you're wearing a mask. Yes, there's going to be some distance, but that's a lot of people. One of those people is going to have an elderly parent living with them in their home or is going to be working at a long-term care facility. And the risk to, let's say, reasonably healthy 70-year-olds is not zero, right? And so it's one of these things where the more you're contacting other people, the more there is a risk of transmission to someone who's then going to contact someone else. If everyone were living in isolation and only had two or three people that they were contacting, this wouldn't be an issue. But we know that that's not how humans interact.

And so let me ask you about that. So I get that point. So but isn't that responsibility? So I have a mom who's going to be 80 in July. So if my mom's staying with me, then I no question, I shouldn't be doing that. I shouldn't be going to the bar and July. So if my mom's staying with me, then I, no question, I shouldn't be doing that. I shouldn't be going to the bar and, you know, throwing caution to the wind. I would behave much, much differently if she were in my apartment. So why can't the onus be on people as individuals? Like, you know, if you're going to be exposed to somebody who's compromised in that way, but the rest of us who aren't, why can't we be out there? Like why we're already asking people to be responsible and support the community and the ways that make sense. Why can't we

especially focus in on people who live with a vulnerable person and say, you, you're basically the same as an old person. So you got to behave accordingly. And the rest of you are good. So first of all, I guess I don't like the idea of putting the onus specifically on other people, because then what happens is that those people begin to feel like, you know, shamed for what they're doing. And often when people feel shamed for what they're doing, they then find ways around it or they won't go and get tested, etc. Also, we don't know everyone's individual situation. So let's say you have your 80-year-old parent living with you at home, but you also have a three-year-old that you have to support, and you work in a restaurant, and if you lose your job, then you're going to be out of work,

and you're going to be evicted from your home, right? And so everyone's situation is unique, and I worry about the idea of let's just put the onus on all individuals to do the right thing, because they may have very valid reasons for not doing that. And it's not just that they are being careless and not compassionate with their parents. Yeah, but the alternative is to put the onus on everyone to stay at home and avoid their work in a way that doesn't make sense either. You know, if I can go out, I'm able bodied and I'm at very low risk and I can help contribute to keeping the economy open and spending my money at restaurants that need it. Why shouldn't I do that? Because there's right now we're damaging so many people who don't need to be damaged in order to protect this relatively small group.

So we've gotten to the point where it's like people are starting to defy the orders. They're sick of it. They bent the curve back in March. And now you're seeing open defiance. We saw a restaurant here in Staten Island say, we're not doing it. We're not closing. We're opening our in-house dining. And the sheriffs came and arrested them. We're not closing. We're opening our in our in-house dining and the sheriffs came and arrested them and people cheered. They cheered the owners saying, go for it. You know, they've kind of had it. So aren't we at the point now where we have to be realistic and say, all right, it's not ideal that if you live with an elderly person, you're going to have to make more sacrifices than somebody who doesn't. But we need an interim measure because the full lockdown

situation or anything close to it is not going to be stomached by the American people. Well, so I think that I'm in agreement that we need a middle ground, right? So I would argue that you're absolutely right. We should not be going back to full lockdowns. And the more we try to push full lockdowns on people, the more, as you say, people are going to openly defy that. But I also think that going completely in the opposite direction of just let everyone do what they want is probably not the wisest decision either. I think that there are some risks that people can still tolerate, right? So, for example, you mentioned wearing a mask as you go out, right? That's something that I think many people can do. Maintaining some level of distance, I think, again, is something that many people can do. Keeping indoor gatherings to a limited capacity is, I think, something that

people are in general able to do, especially for just a few more months until we have a vaccine that can be widely distributed. My sense is we've come this far. We've made it eight months into this pandemic already, and we're just a couple of months from the finish line. Why can't we continue to do some of these sensible measures to keep things at a reasonable level of transmission? I did ask that question, you know, like with the end in sight, you know, can we, why shouldn't we just lock down or something close to that for the next few months? And their point was there it's they didn't use this word, but it's it's insensitive to the amount of damage that's being done to people as a result of the lockdown that, you know, adults are dying from cancer and from heart disease because they're not going into hospitals because they're afraid of this. That they said there'll be 30 million people who will be at risk of starvation this year. 80 million children die of poverty worldwide in the United States, skipping medical treatments

that will result in higher death rates and cancer for women and men and so on. They're basically saying it's fine to sit back and say, oh, sure, we've got six more months, but people are going to die as a result of these lockdowns and they need to be factored in. Yeah, I would counter first again by reemphasizing that no one is talking about lockdowns again. I don't think. I think that putting people in full lockdown mode again for two or three months is not realistic. People will not accept it. And we know how to do things smarter than just fully locking down. But I do think that... Pretty close in LA though. Pretty close. Well, I don't live in LA, so I don't want to speak to that. But I doubt that if that's where

it's going, it's going to last for two months. You're going to see, as you've been describing, lots of open defiance of that, right? But I do think that, to my mind, the ultimate goal here is to minimize the number of people who are getting not only sick and dying of COVID, but also sick and dying of all of these other conditions, as the previous interviewees have pointed out. I think that all should count, right? But I think we need to find, again, a bit of a middle ground where we don't let deaths from COVID run rampant over the next, you know, the next two, three, four, five months until we have a vaccine. What do you think about schools? Because their point was elementary, middle, high school, college, they should be open. The risk is incredibly low and the damage to children in not being with their peers is high. I personally would not in most cases disagree

with that. I think that in most cases, the harms done by keeping schools closed, especially elementary and middle schools closed, is quite substantial, right? And that may be a risk worth undertaking. When we start to talk about large high schools and colleges, I think the trade-offs are something we need to measure, right? Because we're talking about gatherings of hundreds of people who, in single lecture halls, for example, that may not be the smartest decision. And we may be able to find ways to get education to those people in ways that doesn't require the same large gathering high risk setting. But in general, I think that opening schools should absolutely be on the table. The pushback they've gotten has been pretty severe. You know, I saw them come out with their declaration a couple months ago, and I thought, well, this is interesting. At least they're trying to find an alternative

solution to a really tough problem. But predictably, they just got attacked as hacks. I mean, these guys are very well respected at Stanford and Oxford and Harvard. In the same way, I've seen Scott Atlas just get completely dragged. I mean, just completely dragged in a way that's been devastating to his reputation. What do you think of these doctors and what's, what's happened, the nature of the pushback against them? a bit of a middle ground approach here. I would caution against saying that just because someone is from Harvard or Stanford or Johns Hopkins, that that makes them smart and someone who knows everything about a particular topic. But I do agree that the pushback has been quite severe. And I personally would like to see the scientific world be one in

which open debate is encouraged rather than discouraged. And so I don't necessarily agree with everything that the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration have said, but I do feel that people should be able and willing to voice their opinions and to debate those opinions in a respectful fashion, right? But I would like it to be about individual people's opinions, not just saying, well, this person is from such and such university, therefore, they're an expert on the topic. And that goes for me, too. Right. Well, Johns Hopkins is pretty good, too. You know, to me, it's been such an obvious contrast with the, you know, the lionization of Dr. Fauci, who on the left, you know, he can do

no wrong. He's the guy's going to be People Magazine's man of the year, one of the people of the year. And, you know, they had some issues with Dr. Fauci being too singularly focused on one avenue of harm and not any of the others. You know, this has been a debate we've been having in the country for eight, nine months now. Like, it can't all be about stopping the virus. There are other mental health and physical health consequences to the decisions we're implementing in fighting the virus that matter too. And, and I agree. I mean, I personally, again, am a fan of Dr. Fauci. And I think he's done a lot to merit the respect that he's been given. But I don't think any one person's take on this virus, on this pandemic, is going to be perfect at all times.

And I would push back against anyone who says that just because Dr. Fauci says something that we should follow that as well. I also agree that we need to be considering this as a multifaceted pandemic. This is not just about reducing transmission. It's about minimizing other harms, harms to mental health, harms to the economy, harms to people's well-being and harms to deaths from other conditions. I think in general, the best approach is a middle ground where we do some reasonable things to stop transmission and keep it at a manageable level, but without going so far that it's something that the majority of people can't tolerate. On the question that you mentioned of testing, well, we were talking about shame and how we don't want shame attaching to individuals like you live with an elderly person and I saw you at the

bar. They were also raising that same issue because you know how it is. There still is weirdly some element of shame attached to getting the virus. It's weird. It's a damn virus. People get it. Like same with the flu. We never before started blaming people or looking at them like they've gotten the plague. And their point was, one of the points they raised was, why does this have to be a part of public health reporting? Should we be able to get private tests done and then trust individuals to make good choices to protect themselves and others?

So I, again, I agree. I do not think that getting this virus, getting this disease should be a point of shame. Just like I also feel like being a public health worker in these hotspots should not be a point of shame, which sometimes it has become as well. I feel like there's a lot of shame going around, and I wish we could reduce it on all sides. I do think that we need data on where the virus is spreading, where disease levels are the highest so that we can plan our response. It does, I think, make sense to be more strict in places where there is more transmission and less strict as transmission goes down. But I don't think that we need to have people's private information attached to that, right? So you don't need my individual name and address attached to my positive result if I test positive for COVID. But it does help to know what general area I'm in, right? And I think that,

again, we can find a middle ground where we have enough data to plan an appropriately targeted response to areas where the virus is spreading without compromising people's individual information. I was talking to a woman who had just gotten back from Israel. This is two months ago. And she said they tested her or that, you know, she arrived and she had to quarantine for two weeks. And by the way, just for folks at home, now the CDC is saying you can quarantine for just seven days if you test negative and you're asymptomatic seven days from the day you were exposed. So that's good. But anyway, so she had to quarantine for 14 days and she said she

looked out the window and there was literally a little drone there checking on her to make sure she was still in the house. That's one person's eyewitness account. But I can tell you, I mean, if that kind of thing happened here, people will lose their minds. They don't want any more big tech or big government pushing them around. So let's talk about the vaccines, which I do think are miraculous. I'm very excited about these things. I feel like I would take one. I don't know. I would take one. I'd be one of the first ones if they wanted me to be because I don't they don't seem to be telegraphing caution as much as they do with some other vaccines. You know, like they seem to be saying very little side effects, maybe a headache, maybe some malaise, but only in 15 percent of the people. And, you know, it's 95% effective. So why wouldn't you?

What do you think? I mean, I agree. I think that the data coming out on these vaccines so far has been very promising, that efficacy seems very high, side effect levels so far seem very low. Admittedly, it's a relatively small sample size. And we still have to get these vaccines manufactured and distributed to the population. But I would absolutely take a vaccine. So when do we get back to normal? Realistically, when are we going to be able to walk around without masks and go into fully stocked grocery stores and restaurants and bars and even Broadway theaters? So again, I suspect that the return to normal is going to be a gradual one, right? I don't think that it's going to be that we wake up one day and suddenly everything is back to normal.

And there are some things that probably are not ever going to change because of the way that we have reacted to this pandemic. But I think that as we get the first, the highest risk individuals vaccinated, and then larger swaths of the population, we're going to see the ability to slowly scale back on restrictions that have been placed on us. I'm going to say that probably by the spring, there are going to be many fewer restrictions on our lives. And hopefully by mid to late next year, things are going to be close to normal, you know? But I do think it's going to be a gradual process. Since they don't know whether the vaccine actually eliminates the disease within you, or just stops you from getting any symptoms of a disease that is inside of you, a virus that's

inside of you that you could still shed onto other people. That's a bummer because if it gets rid of the virus, then I can take off my mask. Then I'm going to run around and say, I have the immunity. I got the shot. I can't spread it to you. I'm 95% immune, which is good enough for me. But if I could still be shedding it, people are going to tell me I got to keep the damn mask on forever until we truly have herd immunity in the country. Am I right? Well, so I think that you're right to be cautious about this, right? Because we don't know, as you say, whether vaccines are going to be preventing disease or just or transmission or just the disease. But I think that we will be able to watch the numbers of cases and deaths that are occurring in this country. And if those go down, hopefully,

with a vaccine, we'll be able to manage our response accordingly, right? So even if these vaccines, let's say in an optimistic scenario, right, we might not know for a long time if they're able to block transmission. But in nine months from now, if levels of COVID cases and deaths are very, very low, I don't think there's going to be a lot of push to keep restaurants at limited capacity or, you know, enforce mask wearing, you know? It's going to depend on how much disease we're seeing in the country at any given time. Do you think immunity is better, like herd immunity for the community? Is it better if it is not just from a vaccine, if there's a greater proportion in there of people who have had it?

That is a question that I don't think we're going to be able to answer for a while. There are some diseases where having the infection is a better source of immunity. There are others where the vaccine actually does better than the original infection. And so I don't think that we're going to know that for this disease for a while. And I think that we should, as you were suggesting, behave cautiously until we see levels of disease, transmission, death really start to go down. So another question, Moderna and Pfizer seem to have a different vaccine than AstraZeneca. The first two work differently than the third one, and it has to do with RNA. I don't know. My eyes glazed over. I just got they're different. Do you think so far that would you rather take one or the other? Do you think there's it's an important difference?

As of right now, I don't think that there is strong enough data to suggest that one vaccine is much better than the other, right? So it looks like these vaccines are effective. We're not going to know their long-term effectiveness for quite a while, right? But short-term, they all seem to be quite effective. The differences have more to do with the immune response and also things like, do they need to be kept at colder temperatures, et cetera? So distributional concerns, then they do anything that I think the average person should be concerned about in trying to choose between these vaccines. I think if you

have the opportunity to take a vaccine, I would take it. Me too. I would too. I mean, I go by what my doctor says and he'll, he'll tell me straight up, like, this is, this is not good. Don't be on the first line. He's like, we're good. He doesn't even think he wasn't anticipating even months ago that there would be problems with this. And he's an infectious disease doctor. Um, there, there's some of the warnings about traveling over the holiday season are insane. So this is right before Thanksgiving, but the messages stand, the fear factor stands, uh, Salt Lake County health department warned, um, Thanksgiving leftovers won't taste as good if you're on a ventilator in Mississippi, the officials,'s uh message reads as follows we we don't really want to see

mama at thanksgiving and bury her by christmas holy moly so um i don't know i am going to travel over christmas but boy they sure are trying to scare us into not doing that. What are your thoughts on it? Yeah, I think my thoughts are that travel does pose a risk, and I think it's important for people to be aware of that risk. I don't think that scare and shame tactics are generally the right way to get that message out. I would personally prefer to see messaging that describes to people how much of a risk it is to drive, how much of an additional risk it might be to fly or take public transportation, but without trying to scare people. With all of these situations, everyone's situation is unique. And I think the most important thing is to get the information out to people for people to recognize that there are risks associated with these activities, but not to scare people.

All right, last question. Along the lines of what you're saying, people don't like to be ordered what to do by our government. It's not in the American DNA to behave like that. Although I think people have been pretty darn good during the COVID period, with obviously some exceptions. But overall, I think the public's been doing a great job. So what about making these vaccines mandatory? There's a big difference of opinion on whether that makes sense or not. I was just talking with the other guys about, does it make sense for school children when the vaccine has not been tested on school children? You know how they mandate that we get them vaccinated for other things?

So what is your thought on children and otherwise? Should the vaccine be mandatory? Yeah. And first of all, I'd like to echo your comment that I think that the American public deserves some credit for what they've done. And I think, again, this goes back to the, we've made it this far. We've done a lot. We've sacrificed a lot to get to this point. If we can make it just a few more months, hopefully things are going to get better with these vaccines. As far as making vaccines mandatory, I think that it is reasonable for individual businesses or venues or, say, nursing homes,

et cetera, to make this mandatory for their populations. I would be concerned about a broad federal mandate that everyone gets this vaccine. I think that the school children are a challenging situation because we do mandate that kids get a series of vaccines. And there's no reason to think that this vaccine should be very different from many of those other vaccines. But as you say, I think we would want to see enough data coming out that this is going to be safe and effective in school children before we could roll out that kind of a mandate. So I would

say it's reasonable for individual businesses, institutions to require it if they think that that's appropriate for their population. I'd be concerned about a broad government mandate that everyone has to take this vaccine. Art, I actually do have one more question, which is, as a doctor, what do you think it says about our country, our determination, our work ethic, our brilliance, that we've done it. We appear to have done it, to have come up with vaccines, to have come up with vaccines in record time, 95% effective, low rate of side effects. To me as a layperson, I want to stand up and cheer these guys and just say, bravo. It makes me proud to be It makes me makes me proud

to be an American and makes me proud of our companies and our work ethic and our just our, our drive to get the important things done. But you're the doctor. How do you feel? No, I mean, in general, I would agree. I think that that it's quite an accomplishment that we've been able to get what appear to be safe and effective vaccines out in this amount of time. It's never been done before. I think that people in our country have given up a lot to get us to where we are. And we have saved hundreds of thousands of lives by doing what we have done. And I think the message is, we're not quite there yet. We still have a few more months to go. But if we're able to keep this up, I think we can look back on this with a measure of pride

and accomplishment. And I would like to see more positive messaging like that, as opposed to just the shame and fear sorts of messages that we've been talking about before. I think people should be proud. I'm feeling it. I think it is miraculous. I'm proud of the country. And I'm proud of these scientists who really had to do nose to the grindstone to come up with this. What I read was that they had it really soon in this whole process, but they've had to make sure it's safe for all these months thereafter. So apparently it wasn't as complicated a formula as people feared initially. It's just, of course, in something like this, they got to test it and retest it and make sure all the little mice lived after the dosages.

And people have really been working over time. You know, people have been giving their all to make this happen. And I think they deserve mention as heroes. Yeah. And the people who have, you know, subjected themselves to the testing because it hasn't just been the little lab mice. Anyway, thank you so much for your perspective on it and for being part of the good fight. Thanks, Megan. I appreciate it.

Our thanks to all the doctors who helped us understand these issues today. I want to tell you that today's episode was brought to you in part by Bloomsie Box. Farm fresh flowers delivered right to your door. Go to bloomsiebox.com and enter code MK to get 15% off and free shipping right now. Now, before we go, I want to tell you that on our next episode of The Megyn Kelly Show, we've got Dan Crenshaw. I am excited about this. I've actually never spoken to him. And I have a lot I want to go over with him. He's such a great thinker. And I love his sort of down-home take on a lot of issues

that is simple to understand in his general class. It's not every politician you can say that about, but you certainly can about him. So that's on Wednesday. So to make sure that you don't miss it, go ahead and subscribe to the show right now. Don't waste time. Go to BloomsieBox and then go subscribe to The Megyn Kelly Show. And download the episodes, and then we'll pop right up in your inbox and send me a review. Post a thought or a comment on the show there. And actually, a lot of you have suggested that we have Dan Crenshaw on, which is one of the things that made us think about him. So please, guest suggestions are welcome or just thoughts on life are welcome too. And obviously five-star reviews also welcome. In the meantime, have a great couple of days and we'll talk to you again on Wednesday.

Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.