The Munk Debates Podcast - Be it resolved: COVID-19 is everywhere, it’s time to lift all restrictions for good

Starting point is 00:00:00 I distinctly remember hearing someone yell, stop that van. From CBC podcasts, an investigation into how young men are being recruited and radicalized on the internet. And she asked me if I was friends with a guy named Alec Menassian. By a new supercharged form of hate. On Facebook, police say he wrote the incal rebellion has already begun. A dark online subculture that's spilling over into the real world. Boys like me, available now on CBC Listen and everywhere you. you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:00:35 These statues have to come down. It's always been a pandemic of the unvaccinated. The problem now is it's a pandemic of the willfully unvaccinated. Falling birth rates are good. They're good for our planet. They're good for our societies. We're not responsible for the escalation with Russia. We're not the ones who invaded Ukraine.

Starting point is 00:00:54 I don't think it's fair to portray people of color as victims. It is a very dangerous time in American politics. Welcome to the Monk debates. episode, we provide you with a civil and substantive debate on the big issue of the day to arm you, the listener, with enough information to make up your own mind. Today's debate, be it resolved. COVID-19 is everywhere. It's time to lift all the restrictions for good. Talk to imagine the day where kids aren't wearing masks in school. Well, that day could be coming soon to New Jersey. The governor there, Phil Murphy, is expected to announce that the state will lift its school mask

Starting point is 00:01:36 Mandate. Three more states have joined the march to roll back mask mandates today as COVID cases continue to fall. Late today, Alberta's Premier said the time has come to live with COVID. Jason Kenney is beginning to lift public health restrictions, what he calls a path back to normal. And he is ending the proof of vaccine requirement as of midnight tonight. Boris Johnson plans to remove remaining COVID restrictions, which includes the legal requirement to self-isolate if he test positive for COVID. Hello, I'm your moderator, Rudyard Griffith. As COVID-19 cases continue to plummet again and the Omicron variant continues to retreat, some governments are pivoting away from public health measures like mass mandates, school and business restrictions, and vaccine passports.

Starting point is 00:02:25 Health experts supporting this approach argue that safe and effective vaccines and treatments will protect the majority of infected people from severe illness and death. Online learning is detrimental. to the mental health of children, government finances are at the breaking point, having had to repeatedly bail out businesses during society-wide closures. We cannot, they argue, continue to prioritize the health of a vulnerable few over the mental, physical, and economic well-being of entire populations. It's time to start treating COVID-19 as we do other infectious pathogens like influenza. But many in the health care community, including

Starting point is 00:03:07 the Center for Disease Control in the United States do not agree. Right now, our CDC guidance has not changed. We have continued to recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission. That is essentially everywhere in the country in public indoor settings. We continue to recommend universal masking in our schools. Yes, COVID-19 is not as dangerous as the threat that it was originally. But record case counts lead to widespread staff shortages in the health care sector, and hospitals at overcapacity.

Starting point is 00:03:40 Letting the virus run rampant is an irresponsible health approach and will lead to more disease, deaths, and the mutation of the virus within infected people. Previous measures like masking and closures have curbed the rapid spread of COVID, and when and if necessary, governments should not hesitate to reintroduce them again. On this installment of the Monk debates, we challenge the essence of these arguments by debating the motion, be it resolved, COVID-19 is everywhere. It's time to lift all the restrictions for good.

Starting point is 00:04:15 Arguing for the motion is Jay Batacharya. He's an epidemiologist, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, an author of the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocates for an alternative approach to the COVID-19 pandemic instead of shutdowns and mask mandates. Arguing against the motion is Jeremy Faust. He's a public health researcher and a core faculty. member in the Emergency Division of Health Policy and Public Health at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He's also an instructor at the Harvard Medical School. Jay, Jeremy, welcome to the Monk Debates. Nice to be here. Thank you so much. Well, I'm really looking forward to our conversation today. We could not be having a more topical debate. The opportunity to tap into your considered opinions and

Starting point is 00:05:05 insights on this topic just is a privilege indeed. Our resolution, simple, to the point, be it resolved, COVID-19 is everywhere. It's time to lift all restrictions for good. Jay, you're arguing in favor of the motion, so I'm going to put a couple of minutes on our show clock and turn the program over to you. Thank you. So the thing about COVID-19 that we've learned over the last two years is that we have an illusion that we can control the spread of the virus when we actually cannot. We in fact have no technology to control the spread of the virus. Despite lockdowns, despite masks, even despite vaccines, the virus continues to spread. And we have to come to terms with that. The fact that we have no technology control the spread means that the virus is in

Starting point is 00:05:51 effect here forever. That's been true actually since basically since the start of the pandemic, although I think it took a long time for people to realize it. We have put in place lockdowns and other measures to try to control the spread of the virus with really no end point in sight, essentially a permanent change into the way we live in pursuit of a futile goal. The harms of these lockdowns have been enormous, especially to the poor, the vulnerable, and the working class. It's led to people skipping cancer screening. It's led to enormous numbers of people thrown into poverty around the world. And it's led to the deaths of countless people based on the economic harms, including malnutrition and starvation, around the world, including a report,

Starting point is 00:06:38 for instance, by the UN in March of 2021, that over 220,000 children had died of starvation caused by the lockdowns, or at least the harms related, the economic dislocation caused by the lockdowns. There was an alternate plan available, the Great Barrington Declaration. The Great Barrington Declaration argued for focus protection of the vulnerable, using our resources and ingenuity to protect the oldest people who are at the greatest risk of harm, while having a much lighter touch, letting younger people live more normal lives. Had we followed that path, we would have saved ourselves enormous harm. Instead, we've had two years of misery. We've had the harm from the virus, which has spread and killed millions worldwide, while still having the harms of the lockdown, for which we'll pay

Starting point is 00:07:24 for a very long time. So I stand in favor of lifting the restrictions now. We have a population that has been vaccinated to a large degree, especially the vulnerable. A large fraction of population already has had COVID recovered, and so they are actually much better protected than they would have been previously. Early treatments are becoming available, and some are available. We need to return back to a normal scientific discussion about how to manage the virus. And I would also say, as a last word, also to return to normal scientific good faith discussions rather than the smearing and sliming of alternative viewpoints that this characterized much of the scientific discussion of alternate viewpoints during the last two years. Thank you, Jay, for that opening statement in our debate. We're having a

Starting point is 00:08:10 fulsome conversation today. Our resolution before the House, so to speak, is be it resolved. COVID-19 is everywhere. It's time to lift all restrictions for good. Jeremy, you're arguing against the motion. So same opportunity for you, a couple minutes off the top of the show to give us your key thoughts. and ideas. Thank you. And good evening. It's a pleasure to discuss these issues in the COVID pandemic, unfortunately still being with us. A little bit about who I am. I am an emergency physician. I treat patients. I trained in New York City, which of course was the epicenter of the early COVID outbreak. And now I work in Boston a mile from Fenway Park. And I also lead public health research as well. So I consider myself well positioned to understand what happened, not in the ivory tower per se,

Starting point is 00:08:54 but also on the front line. And COVID has claimed 950,000 American lives and many others have been hospitalized. But it's not just the old that Jay would tell you in terms of who's at risk and this focus protection idea, which we'll talk about in detail, I hope, because there's much to discuss. Because the COVID pandemic has also created 140,000 children who've lost a primary care, giver a parent or a primary care provider. So this is not just something that affects the elderly. And the COVID-19 pandemic will soon have claimed more American lives under the age of 50 than the Vietnam War did. And it also has killed more children than almost a decade worth of flu seasons. So this is not what I thought it was when it first arrived

Starting point is 00:09:37 on our shore, which was something that only affected the old and immune compromised. I actually thought that. And then I actually saw my own eyes. I got advanced warning from New York. People who I know have been through everything at Elmer's Hospital where I trained, these people who ironclad nerves of steel told me get ready. And I wasn't really fully prepared mentally, but I was glad to know. And it's true. I was shocked. And we have seen excess mortality, not just rearranging of deck chairs, blaming COVID deaths that actually causes of other deaths. And it's the virus that's caused all the misery that we are all currently enduring, not our attempt to control it. And what I want to alert everyone, too, is that our views should change with the data.

Starting point is 00:10:16 We shouldn't stick to one idea just because we had it and we need to stick with it. And so the idea today that we've learned so much, we have so many tools, we have tests, we have therapeutics, We have actually the ability to track this disease and we can right size our approach in a way we never could before. So the resolution really says to do nothing from now on. And I reject that. We need to be sensible. I think what I'm proposing is a common sense strategy that most people has broad support. Do things when there are surges, protect everyone, including the elderly, when we're at higher risk.

Starting point is 00:10:46 And then, yes, we can relax. But the idea that we can just let it rip, which is what the Great Barrington Declaration and as far as I understand, Jay's views are, That just has not worked. We are living in the world essentially that is that. And I reject it. I think that we've learned so much now that we can actually resume a lot of life. Let's do that. And we should also be willing and able to respond with mitigation protective measures exactly when we need them. And that way we can actually do them and not basically forfeit our way of life. So I think we can do it all in a way we could not before. And if we don't do that, I think we deprive ourselves of the life that we want and also the safety what you all deserve. Thank you, Jeremy, for that opening statement. So now rebuttals the opportunity for both of you to react to what you've just heard. Again, a couple minutes now, Jay, for you to respond to Jeremy's opening statement. So a few things. One is that Jeremy characterizes the Great Bencher Declaration to say, let it rip strategy. That is a false characterization, frankly, a piece of propaganda. The key idea of the Great Branch and Declaration is focus protection of the older

Starting point is 00:11:51 population and also the other vulnerable populations, not let it rip. The idea that letting younger people live normal lives is letting it rip is a lie. As we've seen, despite incredible restrictions that we face these past two years, the virus has nevertheless ripped through the population. The lockdowns themselves failed to protect the people. So for instance, there was a recent article, a massive meta-analysis done by some researchers at Hopkins University that found, John Soxon University that found that, in fact, the lockdowns did not have any marginal effect or very small marginal effect in protecting the population against older people. So just arguing that there were a lot of older people and even some younger people that died is not enough.

Starting point is 00:12:32 What did the lockdowns do to accomplish to save them? The answer is not very much. I also take exception with the idea that we've followed a let-it-rip strategy. In fact, the population has sacrificed so much to comply with the lockdowns. Children have been left out of school. In fact, just to take. Today is the first day in West Bengal that children are being allowed back into school because of this lockdown ideology. The idea that we argue should only just protect the old, that there are younger people, it's true. Younger people have been harmed, but they've been harmed even more by the lockdowns. In July of 2020, one and four young adults seriously considered suicide in the United States.

Starting point is 00:13:11 The poor and working class around the world were asked to work. The lockdowns were a luxury and effect of the rich. Only the rich, the people who could afford to not lose their jobs while lockdown actually enjoyed the benefits of the lockdown. For most of the world, that was not the case. One other point, I'll let it. And I'll stop. That is that the new normal doesn't mean the old normal. The new normal means considerable resources devoted to research for better vaccines, considerable resources devoted to research on better vaccines, considerable resources devoted to research on,

Starting point is 00:13:45 better, better treatments. I think the new normal gives us an opportunity as a society to focus on things that are most important. And mitigation of the spread of the disease is not among those, that set, because we don't have a technology to do it. All we have a technology to do is harm society while the virus nevertheless spreads in a futile attempt to stop it from spreading. So I think, the other thing I think that should happen in the new normal is a return to good faith discussions attempting to understand the views of others, sort of like how this monk debate is proceeding, rather than smearing and attacking of scientists

Starting point is 00:14:23 who have alternate views, engagement with good faith, rather than mischaracterization of alternate viewpoints, I think is going to need to be a hallmark of science going forward, or else the public will lose trust with science to some extent already has because of... And Jay, and I agree with that. I think that the problem is that you've used terms

Starting point is 00:14:40 referring to the other side as people are creating panic. You've referred to them as people who are COVIDians. That's very derogatory, and I'd like to go right to the ideas and not about smearing and just about saying what's going on. And what you said in the Great Barrington Declaration is that, quote, I'm just going to read it so I don't get it wrong. The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection. I do not know the daylight between that and let it rip because that says the infections are a good thing for young people because it allows them, in your words, to build up immunity.

Starting point is 00:15:20 The idea that they've got lockdowns have been harmful. This is an idea that we've heard a lot of. And it's one that I was very worried about. I think that certainly you wouldn't want to do a lockdown if there wasn't a threat. But the problem is, do protective measures or it's faced the full force of the virus, which puts hospital capacity at risk. Now, I think that there has been a big mental health hit. it's something we need to discuss and reinvest in. But you'll notice, for example, the suicidality has actually increased over time. And the one that you always hear is that suicidality, suicide intent,

Starting point is 00:15:50 went up in teen girls in the spring of 2021. And I point out that that happened exactly when schools reopened. And so I don't know really what that means. But what I can tell you is it's not the idea that the lockdowns were what causing, it was causes. It just isn't borne out by the facts. And another thing that I point out is that a lot of people know someone who's died. They know someone who's been infected. They know someone who's suffered. And that's depression. We don't code it, though, in these studies.

Starting point is 00:16:17 A lot of it's grief. So I think that what Jay is misunderstanding, unfortunately, is that a lot of the anguish that we've all felt is not this lockdown, which really hasn't really occurred since early 2020 in this country. But actually, the whole situation where this virus has been allowed to roam free. Thank you, Jeremy. And thank you, Jay. Appreciate the civility, the substance of this debate. Let me join the conversation now and think of some questions that are kind of top of mind for our listeners tuning in. And let's start with vaccine mandates because this is a hot issue right now in Canada.

Starting point is 00:16:53 Maybe some of you have been following these so-called trucker protests that have shut down our nation's capital, copycat protests across the country here in Canada. really at the core of them, a grievance about vaccine mandates, a belief that Betty, that they never should have been enacted, others feeling that they are well past their expiration date. So, Jay, let me come to you first. What's your view on vaccine mandates? You're arguing in favor of our motion today, be it resolved. COVID-19 is everywhere.

Starting point is 00:17:25 It's time to lift all restrictions for good. I assume you're going to include vaccine mandates in that motion. The vaccine mandates are a cruel and unscientific policy. The premise for a vaccine mandate, the economic premise, is that the vaccines have a positive externality. When I get vaccinated, I somehow protect you to a large degree. The problem is these vaccines, after a few short months, according to study after study, shows that the vaccines do not actually stop disease spread.

Starting point is 00:17:55 The efficacy against infection drops to very low numbers after a few short months of taking the vaccine. so that the extent of the positive externality is small. At the same time, many people in the working class who work during the pandemic despite the lockdowns, they're being required to get vaccinated, and they wonder why. The marginal benefit to them is small.

Starting point is 00:18:16 So it's not necessarily irrational to not want to be vaccinated. In any case, the mandates, in a sense, violate by coercion, violate informed consent. You see mass movements of people, mass members of people who just don't want them, rather than try to persuade them with reason than data. Instead, we have laws that threaten their livelihood, their work. And we're seeing as a result a very large movement that has developed essentially saying we don't trust the medical establishment

Starting point is 00:18:42 anymore. We don't trust public health establishment anymore. And vaccine hesitancy for other vaccines has risen as a result of these unscientific cruel mandates. So what you have here is a set of policies that serve no purpose other than to create distrust. They're not protecting other people who are unvaccinated because the disease spreads regardless. And so I think that it is a really good idea to get rid of the vaccine mandates as soon as we can, as we've seen country after country start to do. Thank you, Jay. So, Jeremy, let's come to you.

Starting point is 00:19:13 I mean, you practice in a hospital. A lot of the rationale here in Canada around vaccine mandates has been that we have a state-run, state-funded universal health care system. We have, as a result, limited health care capacity. therefore we need to protect people as much as we can against severe illness that causes hospitalization because that overruns our hospitals and explains in part why we've had not one but four shutdowns in the province of Ontario where I'm coming to you from. So what's your take on vaccine mandates essential or something that we can close the chapter

Starting point is 00:19:52 on and move on to, I don't know, different strategies, different approaches? Well, I wish we didn't need them, but I wonder if we do. And I think that we have to look at what the point is. And you say it well, there is a degree of justification in transmission, which despite what Jay says, the vaccines do still decrease transmission. They don't eliminate it. But another thing that I think a lot about. And it's a luxury that Jay may have because as far as I know, you don't see patients, Jay. But it makes a huge difference to me. And the care that I'm able to provide for everyone, for heart attacks, for strokes, for pediatric appendices. for pediatric cancer emergencies, if I'm working in a children's hospital, for example, whether the hospitals are full. And we have, the hospital system in this country is already stretched to its limits at baseline, and then bring in Delta or Omicron, for example, and we are truly overflowed. So one of the reasons that I think we need everyone to be vaccinated, in some cases a mandate might be what we have to do to get us there, is so that our critical infrastructure, which is a hospital bed for everybody, remains available. And we know that when we have hospital

Starting point is 00:20:55 capacity you get threatened, that everyone suffers, not just the people with the virus, but there's actually less care. And that's actually a really good reason to do mandates. And again, I, you know, I just think it's interesting, Jay, you've said things that are kind of inflammatory against people who are speaking out in favor of vaccines. Who do you believe should be vaccinated against COVID-19? I believe the vaccines should be left to a personal decision based on the benefits and harms for each individual. I think it is certainly the case that almost every single older person, ought to be vaccinated, and I would very strongly argue in favor of that. For children, it is a much closer call, and I think it should be left again to the decision of a physician talking with the

Starting point is 00:21:35 parents for what's best in terms of the well-being of the children. And the same I'd say for health care workers. I think the health care systems are actually quite good at reducing transmission of respiratory viruses by having good ventilation and other interventions that make it less necessary to have these kinds of vaccine mandate. In fact, the vaccine mandates have caused health care shortages. I think it was Ontario, but I could be wrong, might have in Quebec, that actually rescinded the requirement for vaccine mandates because they were going to see a large shortage of health care workers as a result of it. I think the vaccine mandates have secondary effects that end up harming the health of the population. Let me just address another point that you said about

Starting point is 00:22:12 overrun hospital systems. You know, if you look at the HHS Protect website, which has been tracking the capacity of hospital systems in the United States versus the demand, what you'll see is that in most periods during the past two years in most locations, there were nowhere close to being overrun. I never said anywhere that it was not possible to be overrun. That's a falsehood. What I have said is that in most places, they were not actually overrun, which is true. If you look at the HHS data, that is exactly what it documents. And to have this sort of, you keep complaining about how I'm characterizing, you know, so the tone of my talk, but when you get mischaracterized over and over, and the publication that you edit, Jeremy, which

Starting point is 00:22:49 is MedPage today, publishes falsehoods, such as, I'm in the same. I'm in the same. favor of letting the virus rid. That is... Okay, guys, I'm... Hold on a sec. Hold on a sec. Hold on a second. I'm going to jump in here just in service to the listener and just allow Jay to

Starting point is 00:23:02 wrap up, make his final point. So, Jay, bring your point to a conclusion there. And then, Jeremy, you get a response. Yeah. So I think the idea that hospitals maybe could be overrun as possible. Hospitals might be overrun in some places. But they haven't been overrun in most places. And the right response to that is not a universal vaccine mandate that

Starting point is 00:23:21 causes all kinds of secondary harm, including shortages in health care systems, the right solution to that is to expand hospital capacity, which is kind of what we started to do at the beginning of the pandemic and then sort of fell back away from that for reasons that I don't really understand. In places that have high demand or high anticipated demand, the right thing is expand capacity, not vaccinate children that doesn't have an enormous effect on the demand for hospital beds. So, Jay, I have you at an advantage here, and it's a disadvantage for you, you don't understand what is like inside of hospitals. Because of the HHS data that you mentioned, it didn't make sense to me. I agreed that you look at the HHS protect data and it would seem to

Starting point is 00:24:00 suggest that everyone's doing just fine. And I looked into that. And I'm sure you'll be surprised to learn that the number of open beds that they are claiming includes hallway beds, surge beds. They can call a bed a chapel bed. And so in my hospital, for example, HHS thinks that we have close to 1,000 beds when in fact we have 750. So we're actually, you're just, you don't have to change your mind on this one because literally most of the country has been threatened and has actually been over at various times because I'm sorry, you don't get the same care if you're having a heart attack, if you're sitting in a chair in the repurposed chapel as you would if you're in a cardiac unit. So the HHS protect data needs to have a different number that they track.

Starting point is 00:24:40 That's being worked on. But your fantasy that the hospitals have not been overwhelmed is not borne out by my experience. It's not borne out by anyone's experience. Ask anyone in Arizona. Ask anyone in Washington, asking anyone in Georgia, asking one in Florida. These places have been overwhelmed with capacity. We know that when you get to 85 percent, there's an increase in all-cause excess mortality, which is a great reason to slow this virus down. Now, you've said we can't control the virus, and that's, to some extent to that, which I understand where you're coming from, but you have also said that we can't, that the mitigation measures, what you call lockdowns, can, quote, delay cases. And I would say to that precisely, because if we can slow down cases at times,

Starting point is 00:25:20 then I can keep treating the sick. And so what I'd like you to do is to help me be able to treat my patients by saying, look, when there's a surge, we need to have masks back on. When there's a surge, we need to decrease dining capacity by 25%. When there's a surge, we need to make sure that everyone who isn't vaccinated is vaccinated, including the young, including kids, who do drive outbreaks in vertical transmission. So look, your view of hospitals is just simply incorrect. And I wish it weren't because I'm trying to do my job.

Starting point is 00:25:50 and my colleagues are. And the viewpoints like the one you're advancing is making it difficult for us. Okay, guys, so much to get through here. And we're tackling this debate head on. And I really appreciate both of your willingness to stick with this, engage with each other, put forward different ideas and arguments. That's just so much in service of our audience and our listeners. I know they're hanging on your every word as I am, too. Let's talk about another control measure, because we are debating the question of whether restrictions should be lifted for good as a result of the passing of this latest surge of the Omiccon virus. Jay, masks in schools. This has been a controversial issue, not only in the United States, but around the world.

Starting point is 00:26:38 It's been politicized a lot. So let's bring some science to this. Why are you arguing, as I assume you are in support of our resolution today, be it resolved COVID-19 is everywhere. time to lift all restrictions. Why do you think it's time to get rid of masks in schools? Masks in schools never worked, and they will never work. And I'll tell you, I don't think that if you want to understand why, the first thing to understand is the schools have never been the drivers of transmission of this disease. From the very early days of the pandemic, we've known that children are less efficient spreaders of disease. There was a fantastic study out of Iceland published in the New

Starting point is 00:27:15 England Journal in the early days of the epidemic where the lead author gave an interview saying, that there was actually very few instances back in those days of children passing the disease on to parents, but many instances of parents passing disease on to kids. Now, kids can pass disease on to others. That is true, but they are not more efficient spreaders of it. In fact, they're less efficient. And so many studies have documented that schools are not the primary driver's transition, even in places where there are not masks in schools. As far as like the science of masking itself in schools, the problem is that one of the reasons why there's so much controversy over this is that there is no randomized evidence at whatsoever to resolve the issue. There's lots of randomized studies

Starting point is 00:27:54 that precede the epidemic on masks and the spread of respiratory diseases, most of which find that actually masks don't work to control respiratory diseases. You can look at a fantastic Cochrane collaboration publication put out by Tom Jefferson and his colleagues in, I think November of 2020 that documented this literature of dozens of studies finding ineffectiveness or low confidence of evidence that masks stop the spread of respiratory diseases. But in the In schools in particular, one area where there's been a ton of controversy, it's been two years, and yet the U.S. Center for Disease Control has not run a randomized study, a cluster randomized study of any sort, to try to address this question and ask, what effect does masking children

Starting point is 00:28:35 in schools have on disease spread? And because we don't have a solid answer to that question, you can look at non-randomized data, like, for instance, Emily Oster did this interesting study of masked and unmasked school districts in Florida, in places. in in 2021 and found no correlation. What you're going to end up seeing is that there's very weak evidence, if at all, that masks have any effect in schools on stopping disease spread and no randomized evidence whatsoever. On the other hand, you also have large numbers of parents and children that do not want the masks,

Starting point is 00:29:07 that view the mask as an imposition. And again, create this distrust of public health as a result. For fear of, I mean, I don't want Jeremy to accuse me of spinning fantasies, but it is an absolute fact that there is no evidence that the mass have had in schools have done anything whatsoever to stop the spread. Instead, it's created distrust in public health and it's created a movement of parents across the country who are very upset that their kids are being asked to do something that's actually not protecting immunocompromised kids or anyone else. It's simply clearly, again, an illusion of doing something when it actually has not achieved

Starting point is 00:29:40 any of the results have been promised. Thanks, Jay. So, Jeremy, your take on kids and schools and as a, source of transmission, of concern. Mask mandates have been at least ubiquitous here in Canada in schools now for almost two years. Currently, there is not a discussion as to when that restriction will be removed. So look, masks do stop the spread of this virus to some degree. They're not perfect. There is no randomized controlled trial for masks in schools, but there's also no randomized controlled trial that has shown any of the harms that the anti-maskers and the panic kind of fear mongers would have you believe. We do have studies that suggest that having

Starting point is 00:30:22 places that had masks had a reduction in closure. So keeping the schools open is actually a really good important thing. And masks can help that happen. So I support it on that basis. Another thing that's interesting is that we were told there's all the scare science about the masks. You know, we heard that masks would make kids have trouble breathing. Well, you know, studying jammed, it showed that that wasn't the case. And we heard that masks would have the the ability to read emotions and kids would be changed. Not true. We heard that masks would impair cognition. Turns out the opposite. Kids who actually had better verbal recall. Now, I'm not saying we should have them forever. Let's please get rid of them as soon as it's safely possible.

Starting point is 00:31:01 But the idea that they haven't been subject to a randomized controlled trial is true in schools, but the same can be said about all these falsehoods about the so-called harms of masks. I want kids to stay in school. And at the moment, it appears that having masks actually increases that. And I think that we should do anything we can do to keep schools open and keeping everyone safe. That includes a lot of testing and a lot of masking. These are things that actually keep schools open longer and testing reopens schools sooner. But the idea, I think that if we just forget it doesn't exist, then everyone will be better again. Actually, it's just, it's just wrongheaded. We actually have to get ahead of it. And then our closures can be brief. They can be shorter. They can be targeted. And on that basis, I think,

Starting point is 00:31:45 think that they actually make a great deal of sense. Hi, Rudyard Griffiths here, your host and moderator. I have a favor to ask you, please consider becoming a monk member. Membership is free and you get access to a series of great benefits, including a 10-plus-year library of some of our best debates, dialogues, and podcasts. You also get a free monthly newsletter featuring the debates that we're watching around the world. And you get a specially curated Friday.

Starting point is 00:32:17 weekly monk members-only podcast that focuses on the big international events and trends shaping our world. All of that, again, free at www.munkdebates.com. I hope you'll consider joining and becoming part of our community. Now, back to our program. Jay, we're moving through a lot, I think, of the key questions here on listeners' minds. And the next has to be, what about the future? I mean, we know this virus is continuing to mutate. In some ways, it's surprising virologists at the extent the speed, the rapidity of its mutations.

Starting point is 00:33:04 Likely, there will be more variants in the future. Should we continue in the future to see shutdowns, maybe time-specific, limited in various ways, as part of our toolkit to respond to the threat of new variants. Capacity limits. You know, we're just seeing an easing of those here in Canada, again after our fourth shutdown in four years. So I think a lot of people want to know, Jay, you know, is the future going to look more like the past,

Starting point is 00:33:36 or could the future truly be something quite different than what we've experienced in the last 24 months? I mean, I think each society has a choice. We can either have a biomedical security state with an aim towards stopping the spread of a single respiratory pathogen and organize our societies around that. With the risk of repeated lockdowns, children being left out of school, your business being shut down, your ability to work being hampered, unless you happen to be in the laptop class, we can have that with QR codes and vaccine passports and restrictions you're able to go to work, to eat out. or to go to a movie theater or whatnot, to travel, freedom of travel, freedom of association, all of that restricted in service of a control of a respiratory virus,

Starting point is 00:34:25 which will ultimately fail because none of those technologies actually stop the spread of respiratory viruses. Or we can have a society, a liberal society that has liberal principles devoted to doing good science to manage the disease in ways that actually work. Good vaccines, like the ones we have, but even better ones, that maybe they can stop the spread of, of the disease, good treatments, as well as returning to a situation where we care about more diseases than just this one. Heart disease is still an incredible killer, much more than COVID.

Starting point is 00:34:59 Cancer is still an incredible killer, much more so than COVID. Malnutrition is still a leading killer around the world. So if we choose, we can have that biomedical security state, or we can have an enhanced version of our liberal democracies that are focused on developing good treatments and thinks about public health much more holistically, where we have a return to thinking about science as a place where good faith discussion could happen rather than the smearing in lies that we've seen if characterized much of science during the past two years. Thanks, Jay. You are listening to a terrific debate on the motion, be it resolved.

Starting point is 00:35:33 COVID-19 is everywhere. It's time to lift all restrictions for good. So, Jeremy, as we head into the final quintile of this debate, let's get your view on the future. the necessity or not for the possibility of more shutdowns to control a new variance and or capacity limits and all the various kind of tools that we've been using. Because I think there are some listeners out there who acknowledge the possible threat of variance, but also I see reported to them in the news and they're hearing from scientists that this virus is becoming more and more contagious.

Starting point is 00:36:10 I mean, at what point do you start facing off against an R not number? that's just so big that further to Jay's, you know, some of his original arguments in this debate, whatever you do is kind of cosmetic. At the end of the day, the virus is just so damn infectious, it's going to spread. And we've seen that with this latest strain, Omicron. We've seen record, rapid spread, despite, at least here in Canada, a whole host of controls of the type that Jay is opposing. Well, we won't be safe until everybody is safe in terms of being protected from this disease. And we cannot do that simply by focusing on the elderly. We need to have everybody fully vaccinated.

Starting point is 00:36:57 We need to have testing and wastewater tracking to make sure that when there are surrogers, we use hospitalizations as the guide for whether or not we need to make any temporary protections and put those in place. The idea, this resolution says, stop everything forever because this is all here. this is not the case. We know that this virus is still causing hospitalizations and deaths, excess deaths in every age group that we look at. And focusing on the old will not do it. And look, on August 1st, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida tweeted that we protected the vulnerable by vaccinating the older population. And he was quoting Jay when he said that, literally. And there was a nice picture of Jay there. The problem is that then in Florida, what happened was among

Starting point is 00:37:36 people 65 and older, there was 18,000 excess deaths during Delta, the ninth worst in the country. in a place like Massachusetts where we actually have vaccinated more people, including more people over 65 per capita, we were the sixth best. Now you look younger, 50 to 64, 18 to 49. Florida consistently was in the worst 10 because they failed to protect everybody because there just hasn't been enough vaccination. There's been too much downplaying and too much scaremongering about this vaccine. And it's strange to me that you would not want to vaccinate your children against this virus, whereas the vaccines that we actually routinely require for during a lot. school and college killed far fewer than COVID. Look, COVID has killed 300 kids during Delta.

Starting point is 00:38:17 It's killed 200 and then 300 more during Omicron. 1,250 kids altogether during the pandemic compared to five of influenza. It's hospitalized, an odor of magnitude more. This is a very, very dangerous disease for everybody. And I think that the mistake would be to think that we're going to get to normal by just protecting the very few. That's just not going to happen. But I think if we do, if we have full comprehensive vaccination,

Starting point is 00:38:41 and we do testing, then we can do mitigation that's not as clunky as the way we used to do this, having shutdowns and staying home. We can do just small changes in our daily behavior, putting on masks for a little while, decreasing capacity in large events. But apparently that's a police state because if you want to keep your hospital from overflowing for two weeks during a bad part of the year, that's a coercive biomedical state. It sounds very conspiratorial in my mouth. somehow it sounds smoother in Jays. But it's strange to me that we wouldn't want to fight this

Starting point is 00:39:14 virus when it rears its head in terms of causing a safety threat to all of us. Jay, do you want to have a response to that before I go to closing statements? Yeah, sure. So a couple things about Florida. If you look at Florida's age-adjusted mortality through the whole pandemic, it actually does better than the typical state. In fact, I think it's like 20th or 21st or 22nd in the country. And compared to California, where I live, which has had essentially a lockdown regime where for 18 months my kids could not go to school, California actually has almost exactly the same age-adjusted mortality rate from COVID than Florida has. I mean, I do agree that I wish that there had been more vaccination of the old in Florida,

Starting point is 00:39:54 but that's true. I also have Massachusetts and all of the rest of the country. Protecting the old requires vaccinating them. The quote that Jeremy has thrown at me is in fact a quote arguing for vaccinating the old. Now, I'm not sure why Jeremy thought that I was against it, which is strange to me, but I want to come back to that because I think there's been a lot of distortion about the ideas that I put forward. For instance, Jeremy said over and over again that COVID kills kids at very, very high rates. That puts a lot of fear into parents that is unwarranted. Yes, there are measles deaths than there are COVID deaths, but that's because measles doesn't spread in the United States very much because we vaccinated such a large fraction of the young population. I'm afraid that will change as the vaccine skepticism rises in response to some of the mandates and the force and the coercion that people have faced.

Starting point is 00:40:46 I think the reason why measles doesn't kill kids isn't because measles isn't deadly for kids is because we've done something to address it. On the other hand, children skipping school, having restrictions on their interruptions in their schooling does actually lead to shorter, less healthy lives. There's a paper in the health economics literature that maybe Jeremy, he's not aware of by Arianna Laris Mooney, a classic paper in 2006 or 2005 that showed that skipping school actually has long run consequences on the lifespans and the health of these kids as they age. We've basically created a generation of kids that are going to suffer shorter, less healthy lives as a consequence of these lockdowns. And if we keep adopting them over and over again, if we disrupt the lives of our kids through these kinds of these policies

Starting point is 00:41:34 with a short-sighted aim of trying to protect them from a disease from which they're not face a large risk. I think we've sort of lost sight of what really what the society ought to be about. Now, I mean, it keeps schools open by using masks when we have surges and by doing testing, that's fine. But I think the problem with your analysis is it relies on your belief, which is that for people who are younger, the fatality rate or the survival, you said the survival rate is 99.95% and 1 in 10,000. But if that's true, Jay, then there have been among kids 0 to 17 in this country alone 628 million infections. Well, that's twice as many people are in the whole country. So that either means that every kid's been infected twice and natural

Starting point is 00:42:15 immunity is not as good as you've said it is. Or maybe, just maybe, this virus is really dangerous to kids. And yes, we should do everything we can do to keep schools open. But your analysis should change. It really should change if you understand the true harms of this disease, not to mention other consequences. We don't know what long COVID does to kids. We know that multi-inflammatory syndrome of children is very, very devastating to the thousands and thousands of kids we've gotten it. We know that vaccines actually prevent that and decrease it. And so I just kind of want to ask if since, since COVID is actually deadlier than flu, deadlier than measles, deadly than almost every vaccine-preventable virus that we have, should we not vaccinate children

Starting point is 00:42:52 against this virus, Jay? Jeremy, I think you've got the math wrong. It's not correct to say that the infection fatality rate for measles for kids is lower or higher than for COVID. That's just false. frankly, you've got the math wrong on the infection fatality rate for children with COVID as well. If you look at the serap prevalence studies, it is pretty clear that the rate of the mortality rate for children is very, very low. And it's not as if it's debatable. There's hundreds of studies now that document a low infection fatality rate for children. The CDC itself has put out numbers that suggest that the recovery rate from COVID if you are a child is something on the order of 99.9 plus percent. So it's not true, as you're trying to scaremonger parents, that children actually face a high risk of death or morbidity. The rates are very, very low.

Starting point is 00:43:40 It's a huge blessing that children are not at huge risk from COVID. And to scare monger parents are on it, I think, is irresponsible, Jeremy. I was also furthermore say that if you want to protect kids, you need to let them live somewhere close to normal lives. The kinds of activities, the restrictions on activities that we have imposed have hurt. hurt them. In the early days of the pandemic, we closed schools and many places still closing schools, as I mentioned, my opening statement. Child abuse rates, reported child abuse rates went down, even as actual child abuse went up because a lot of child abuse is picked up at schools. There's a lot of facts about how important schools are that I think you don't fully appreciate,

Starting point is 00:44:22 Jeremy. So if you look at how schools actually, but how important schools are, they are absolutely vital to the lives of these children. And if you think that disruptions in these schools repeatedly is somehow good for them in order to suppress one disease, well, I think you're, I think you've made a big mistake. Well, you've made a, you keep on pretending as if I'm the one trying to close schools when I'm actually advocating for the things that open them. But since you did repeat the 99.9.9, I believe you said highly, the 19.95. And we know that there have been 1,250 deaths of COVID of 0 to 17 in this country. Again, that would imply there have been 80 or 90 million pediatric cases of COVID so far, which is more children than exist, Jay. So your numbers

Starting point is 00:45:04 must be very wrong. So look, I don't mind us debating about what, how far should we take it? Should we do masks on certain days? Should we test on certain days? We can debate that. But if you're coming from a place where you actually think that there have been more infections than there are kids, then one of two things is true. Either you have the actual fatality rate wrong by a lot, which I suppose is the case. Or natural immunity is not what you said it is, because you've said elsewhere that natural immunity should be a way to get out of vaccine requirements. I disagree because people don't know if they've really been infected or not. And the math that you're relying upon would suggest that either it's a far more dangerous disease for children or natural

Starting point is 00:45:40 immunity does not work at all. So which one is it? I think there's been some repeated infections. I certainly think Omicron evades both natural and vaccine immunity, but I also think it is a milder disease than the previous versions. I do think the literature on natural immunity is absolutely rock-solid. To deny that it exists, that it doesn't provide very strong protection against severe disease is just false. In fact, if you look at study after study from places like Qatar, like Sweden, even in Northern California, out of Italy, natural immunity comes out in many ways better. There's a great study out of Israel that found that natural immunity provides multiple-fold better protection against both severe disease and death,

Starting point is 00:46:19 and also against reinfection. Now, if you think about natural immunity, I don't recommend getting infected. I think that's a mistake. I think you should be vaccinated because the vaccine does reduce the probability of severe disease and death. But to ignore the fact that people who are COVID-recovered

Starting point is 00:46:34 have very strong immunity is actually, and it also has bred distrust. Because people can see that. They can see that people who have been infected in their own lives. They recover from it. And when they do recover from it, they actually seem protected.

Starting point is 00:46:45 And they are. That's what the literature bears out. What I said was that natural immunity actually, if you do survive, if you do get through this, natural immunity certainly does give you some degree of protection. Unfortunately, you've cherry-picked studies. There are studies in nature. We've seen other studies even in the past 24 hours that show we actually, the truth is that hybrid immunity is the best, but you want to get vaccinated first. Again, vaccinate kids first. I don't know why you're so against kids getting vaccinated because if we all are going to

Starting point is 00:47:09 get this thing, we should be vaccinated first, including kids. And so natural immunity does seem to have some degree of protection against severe disease. And I think, look, I'm in favor of common sense strategies that take that into account. The problem, J, is that from the ivory tower of Palo Alto or even where I work, you know, we can't know who actually has been infected. 55% of people who think they were infected have no antibodies. Okay. So those people would say, oh, I don't need to get vaccinated because I'm protected. Well, you really think outside of the very wealthiest enclaves, anyone's going to know their antibody status? Of course not. So we all know that vaccination is the way out of this. Now, that's not to say that,

Starting point is 00:47:48 if you recover from an infection, you didn't get something for that. Look, I agree with that. And I don't want you to mischaracterize my views on that. I have never once said that. But what I would say is the idea, which I've seen you advance elsewhere, that natural immunity is superior or that natural immunity is a way to get out of vaccination, I think is a problem because what it does is it prolongs this crisis. Because again and again, what closes things down is the virus, not lockdowns.

Starting point is 00:48:13 We haven't had a lockdown where people are stuck in their houses since early 2020. Look, the fact of the matter is we haven't done nearly enough to protect the young people who've lost their lives from this. I said I had a paper in MMWR where we actually found the largest increase in all-caused excess mortality was among 25 to 44-year-olds driven by COVID. So again, I think that we might agree that natural infection has a role, but we probably disagree that it's practical outside of the ivory tower to use that as a way to get out of this crisis. Gentlemen, let's move to closing statements. This has been a terrific and fulsome debate. As per debate convention, we're going to give Jade the last word in this conversation. So, Jeremy, that means you're up first.

Starting point is 00:48:54 What's the key point, argument, or idea that you want to leave listeners with as we bring this debate home? Thank you very much for having me. And I just think it's very important for everyone to realize that we've come a long way in our ability to track this. We don't have to do draconian things the way we used to. But we can still all agree that there are times when we want to actually act and slow this down to not overwhelm hospitals, to give more time for people. to avoid the worst of this disease. The problem is that Jay has cherry picked his facts over and over again, and I've taken upon myself to make sure that he is at least aware from at least one person that a lot of the data that he relies on is either from early 2020 or was never true in the

Starting point is 00:49:33 first place, or in some situations, higher quality data that he chooses not to present actually negate or highly question his views. So I just want that to be understood. The idea that focused protection is this thing we could have done. It's sort of like communism. Whenever you say it's impossible, they say, oh, well, we never really tried it, man. You know, it's like, so Jay has this idea that if they just only, if we only were just just to protect the 65 plus group, then everything will be fine. But we know now that, yes, kids do spread this disease, not as much as adults, but they do. Yes, adults do die of this disease, including all-cause excess mortality, not just rearranging death certificates. Yes, we do know that vaccines and vaccine

Starting point is 00:50:14 mandates are the things that are going to get us back to normal. Yes, we do know that throwing on a mask is an inconvenience, whereas being intubated is actually a threat on your life if you're dying, and that's what COVID does. The idea that the lockdowns have caused harm is unfortunately one that Jay continues to espouse when, in fact, we haven't had the lockdowns that he imagines in these fever dreams. What we've had basically is close to a letter-ripped strategy in many parts of the country, as I can imagine, including Florida, where Jay has been very influential, and the results have been devastating. The excess more. mortality across all age groups in Florida has just been astoundingly bad, worse in this country,

Starting point is 00:50:49 worse than many countries in Europe. And we don't want to repeat that. Meanwhile, what we can do is we can all agree to have a right size. This resolution is for good. Let's stop doing everything for good. And I say, no, we've learned so much. Let's do as little as possible, but as much as necessary. And that's different than saying, do nothing because actually no one really dies from this except for old and immune compromise people. We know that's not true. And therefore, we can actually be thoughtful in how we mitigate going forward, which will actually make it so life resumes very safely most of the time. And once in a while, we do something for each other to make sure that hospitals and our most vulnerable are safe. That's what I'm arguing for. And I think most people agree with that.

Starting point is 00:51:28 Thank you, Jeremy. Jay, as per debate convention, we're going to give you the last word in today's debate. So wrap this conversation up for us. Sure. I think as society, we have a choice. We can either live in this dystopia that we lived in the last two years, focused mainly on the suppression of a single infectious disease, or we can go back to our liberal democracies, focused on a whole wide variety of goals, including also in addition to the protection against disease, other diseases and health more broadly speaking, holistically speaking.

Starting point is 00:52:04 We have faced during this pandemic an illusion of control, and you've heard it from Jeremy, about how we can stop this disease and spread, And despite all of these measures they've been put in place, essentially we've failed at that because it's not possible to do so. If you look at the actual outcomes from Florida, Jeremy mentioned fact-checking. Let me just fact-check him, for instance, about the excess mortality. Florida has actually had lower excess mortality through the pandemic than California has. That's a fact.

Starting point is 00:52:34 In fact, it's done better than most of other states in the country. That is because it's used a more holistic approach to this virus than. than many other states that have used lockdowns. Jeremy has repeatedly said that we have not had a lockdown since 2020. I'd like him to explain why my kids didn't attend school for almost 18 months. I'd like him to explain to people who've lost their businesses and their work what exactly happened these past 20 months then. I'd like him to explain to the people in Calcutta whose kids have not been in school for 20 months,

Starting point is 00:53:02 whether there has or not has not been a lockdown. I'd like him to explain to people around the world who face starvation as a consequence of the lockdown policies and the disruptions that Jeremy has espoused. I think going forward, we have to be very clear-minded. These were not put on us by these viruses. These were policy choices with arguments made by people like Jeremy and adopted by essentially the entire world, with the exception of a few places like Sweden, like Florida,

Starting point is 00:53:29 that has devastated populations, especially the poor, the working class, and the vulnerable. And it is not protect us against COVID. I think it is absolutely foolish to return to these policies and now is the time to lift them up and instead return to a place where we can do science normally in good faith discussion. And I'm really glad that I'd have this chance to fact-check Jeremy, who you can tell, has lied repeatedly about positions that I've taken. It's time to return to normal scientific debate in good faith as opposed to the smearing and lies that we've seen. Jeremy, Jay, thank you for being part of this conversation.

Starting point is 00:54:02 This is a heated debate. You guys went at it, but we're all the better for it. two clearly distinct and different views on a complicated and important issue. Again, just in service of the cause of debate as a way of elucidating, explaining, addressing, and confronting these very types of issues as those that we've discussed today. So on behalf of the Monk Debates community, thank you both so much for coming on the program. Well, that wraps up today's debate. I want to thank our participants, Jeremy and Jay, for a terrific far-reaching conversation. They've certainly gave us a lot to think about.

Starting point is 00:54:46 Let's hear your feedback and reflections on this debate. Send us an email right now to podcast at monkdebates.com. Again, podcast at MUNK DebateswithanS.com. Quick reminder that our free, Monk members-only podcast exploring contemporary and current events is available to you. every Friday is part of our complimentary basic monk membership. You can grab that monk membership for free right now at triple W

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The Munk Debates Podcast - Be it resolved: COVID-19 is everywhere, it’s time to lift all restrictions for good

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