The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Episode 4

Episode Date: January 29, 2021

This is a sample of the Munk Members-Only Podcast. To access the full length episode consider becoming a Munk Member. Membership is free. Simply log on to www.munkdebates.com/membership to register. Under your membership profile page you will find a link to listen to the full length editions of Munk Members Podcast. The Munk Members Podcast provides a focused, half-hour masterclass on current events with Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author. Rudyard Griffiths, Chair of the Munk Debates, is the podcast moderator. Janice and Rudyard unpack the big issues in the news and drill down into the people, events and trends that are shaping our lives in this extraordinary moment. The full length episode digs into three big stories in the news this week — The new virus variants; how much of a risk are they in terms of delaying the “return to normal” everyone has been counting on? — Vaccine nationalism; with delays in doses being announced almost daily what is risk of new wave of protectionism breaking out this time centered on protecting domestic vaccine supply? — Game stock insanity; what does the latest bout of excessive speculation on Wall Street tell us about capitalism and financial markets? We debate and discuss it all. If you like what the Munk Debates is all about consider becoming a Supporting Member. For as little as $9.99 monthly you receive unlimited access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, monthly newsletter, ticketing privileges at our live events and a charitable tax receipt (for Canadian residents). To explore you Munk Membership options visit www.munkdebates.com/membership. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, Monk podcast listeners. The following is a sample of the Monk members-only podcast. To access the full-length edition of this episode and all of our regular Monk members-only podcasts, go to our website, www.com, and register for membership. Membership is free, and it's available for you right now at www. Moncdebates.com. Hope you enjoy the program. Welcome to the Monk members podcast. I'm Rudyard-Griff, your host and moderator. This is our regular check-in on the big news and events that are changing our world. We do this exclusively for our monk members, and as our guide to this extraordinary moment we find ourselves in, we're just so fortunate to have as our guest on this program, Janice Gross Stein. She's the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, one of Canada's leading

political scientists, internationally bestselling. Author, Janice, so much to talk about this week. Wow, we've got a great set of three topics that we're going to jump into with you. We really do. I said to you earlier, Redyard, I called this week, who calls the shots? We'll put that down as the title of the podcast episode. We're going to get into three issues. Our pledge to the listeners is we do this in 30 minutes or less. It's kind of a masterclass on current events, hopefully give you a way of understanding the week that was and maybe give you some insights into how potentially to anticipate and interpret the week to come.

So, Janice, those three topics have got to be, number one, the new variants of what their impact is on the course of this pandemic and the public health response. I think then we've got to talk about the rise of vaccine nationalism and protectionism, big implications here potentially for Canada and the rest of the world. And then finally, Janice, let's make sure we have some time to talk about the madness on Wall Street and Game Stock. But let me come to you first on the new variants. We've seen just in the last 24 hours two new vaccines come out suggesting much lower efficacy towards particularly this South African variant. What is your assessment of the risk that these new vaccines?

variants posed to that that heady optimism that we had back in November when that amazing Pfizer announcement came out of 95% effectiveness against the early strains of COVID-19. It's certainly dampening the optimism a little bit. You could just feel it in the conversations that are going on, even among the public health experts. But let's put this in context. Yes, there is a big gap. in efficacy so far in two studies the Novavax one and the Johnson Johnson one where it drops

from something like 70 something percent down to 50 so that's that's a significant gap and we don't know on Pfizer and Moderna yet because they haven't published their data but I'd be surprised and it's particularly the South African one not so much the one that's in Britain now for Canadians worrying because the South African one is already in the United States. And if it's there, it's only a matter of time, of course, until it comes here. So what does this mean? Here's the good news.

50% efficacy is 50% more than we would have unvaccinated. So we are in a race. The more people we can get vaccinated before that variant takes hold, the less likely the variant is to take hold. It just can't, it will hopefully will not find enough hosts, enough people to infect. Am I optimistic? Our pace in Canada, as we all know,

is not what it should be. And I really, there is a mentality, not of a war footing emergency. There is a, a lowered sense of intensity, which I think we need to ramp up, frankly. This is a race against time. And you can feel it palpably in the United States now under the Biden administration.

Right, and countries like Israel that have shut down international travel largely in response to the variant. My concern with the new variants, Janice, is my understanding, and I'm sure we've got a couple of epidemiologists listening to the program who can email in after and correct me if I'm wrong. but my understanding is that the challenge with this virus is just it's so much more infectious. And when it's more infectious, you already need a much higher level of immunization within a society to achieve that so-called herd immunity. You then add to that vaccines that are getting close to the FDA cutoff for non-approval, which is 50% efficacy. You then need to up your immunization levels even further as the vaccine.

steps down in its effectiveness. So in effect, what we're facing now is not a scenario as we thought in the fall with these, you know, 90, 95 percent efficient vaccines, which could allow for us potentially to inoculate, you know, 60 to 70 percent of the population and then have real protection. We're now looking, if you read between the lines of Anthony Fauci and others, you know, we're now looking at a really tough goal here, which could be immunization rates 80, not. 90% before you start seeing enduring immunity on the part of the broad population. So I think that's too pessimistic, Richard. And I think it's where I agree with you first is with efficacy rates of 50%.

You've got to push way up on the vaccination rate. Now, here's the good news in Canada. Latest surveys show something like 80% of Canadians are now willing to get vaccinated. If they can find one. Yeah, yeah. It's climbing, it's moving in the right direction. And by the time we get to that last group, it's not that much of a hill. It's all, you know, the last smile is always the hardest, as we know.

So there will be a push. But frankly, we're not that far off. But here's, I think, the better news for everybody is, especially with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that use RMNA, they're already working on the booster shot for the South African vaccine now. I don't know if you ever had a booster shot as a kid, but I sure had a booster shot as a kid. And most of the kids today will get vaccinated against measles, but we'll get a booster shot.

That's probably what we're going to be living with. Okay, Janice, this is terrific because I get to be Dr. Gloom and you get to be Mrs. Panglossian. So I'm enjoying, I'm enjoying this because I think there's something interesting here that, again, you can pick up reading and listening to great podcasts with epidemiologists, is that there was never a sense that this virus could mutate this quickly at the initial outset of this pandemic. There was a conviction, a widespread conviction, that these vaccines potentially could be effective for years. Yeah.

Now, just one variant that we know because there could be other variants all around the world in animal hosts that are cooking away or in other populations where there is not, you know, surveillance. This virus has a speed of kind of delivery to market that seems to be faster than the cycle of the vaccines, not the tweaking of the vaccines. But remember, great if Pfizer or Moderna can tweak the vaccine, but then you have to manufacture it. at scale, then you have to distribute it, then you have to inoculate people. What I worry personally is that, you know, as a younger person, I'm going to have maybe a chance of this vaccine in October. Who's to say that the version one vaccine will even be effective to the extent to which I want it to be effective and the extent to which public health authorities needed to be effective to achieve some kind of broader protection within the population?

Too gloomy. Here's why you're too gloomy, record. First of all, viruses mutate all the time, and they're smart, these viruses, they mutate all the time. We probably had, nobody exactly knows except the people who are doing the genetic testing. We've probably had 18 or 20 mutations of this virus since it was first identified. I think hundreds of thousands, actually. Yeah, who knows. But we've identified 18 to 20. And the people who are really good at this are in the UK because they do the most extensive genetic testing. Of those, one, the South African, one only appears... That we know about it. That we know about, appears to have lowered the efficacy.

Now, what's happening with the vaccines right now? By the time they get around to you in October, Richard, which I hope they do, I'm more worried about the pace of this than I am in the mutations. You'll probably get two shots. You might let it get the vaccine. We'll probably get the booster shot right then. And my hunch is that you will be back at it next year with another booster shot.

But that is entirely... Okay, so let's set aside, and I think there's some debate whether the booster shots can get there in time. We'll have to see. There could be a delay where I go to the back of the list again in October. or the back of the line and somebody else who's more vulnerable gets the new generation of vaccine and I have to wait another six months. But anyway, I'm healthy. I'm fine. I think what's interesting is how are governments going to respond to this, Janus? Because if there is a continual threat out there of new variants emerging that seem to challenge the prophylactic effects of the existing

vaccines, what do governments do? I mean, is air travel ever going to go back to normal again? Do we have sporadic shutdowns of airspace like Ben Gurion right now as governments try to interpret what the threat of these viruses are how the variance appearance matches with their booster schedule? This stuff fascinates me. It really suggests that COVID is endemic and it is chronic. And we are not going back to normal in any way that we thought or we hoped that we were last fall. So that is, again, to me, the worst case scenario when you're painting. Look, Richard, when we vaccinate 80% of the population and it's clear already that we'll get to that target in Canada. And when we get the vaccines and the shots in the arm, of those, 50% of those will be resistant to the new vaccine.

So the mutant is already having a much tougher time finding a space. When you give booster shots, that's going to make it even tougher. So you're on a downward slope over time. And that's how we dealt with all contagious diseases in the past, all infectious diseases. You don't wipe them out. They're endemic, but they're endemic at lower and lower levels over time. You get less and less sick from them. And then I don't know what the right timeline on this is, but you and I will be talking about something else because coronavirus will be boring.

That's effectively where we're moving to. We travel even though we know there are deadly epidemics of flu in January, February, March, and northern climate. So we don't think about it. We're going to get there. You've been listening to a sample of the Monk Members Only podcast. To access the rest of the episode, consider both. becoming a member. Membership is free and available at www. monk debates.com. Once you've joined as a member, go to your membership profile to access the rest of this episode and all of our monk members

podcasts. Thanks for listening.