The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Episode 7

Episode Date: February 19, 2021

This is a sample of the Munk Members-Only Podcast. The program provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. This episode digs into three big stories in the news: COVID case numbers plunge globally; why is this happening and what does it mean for the future of the pandemic? — Facebook blocks news sharing on its Australian platform; is the latest overreach by Big Tech the beginning of a new regulatory push by governments? — Texas freezes in the dark; does the collapse of the Lone Star states energy grid a powerful case for renewable energy or proof positive that fossil fuels are here to stay? 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. 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. Hi, Monk members. Welcome to this, our regular Monk members-only podcast. This is our weekly show, our program where we try to provide you in 30 minutes or less with a kind of masterclass on current events. We unpack three big issues in the news, and we do that with Janice Gross Stein. She's the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, an internationally best-selling author and acclaimed political scientist. Janice, great to be

continuing these conversations with you. And great to see you, Redyard, to be with all the Monk members. A great week, I guess for us, Janice, in terms of juicy stories to weigh in and try to give our members, hopefully maybe some new ideas, some new ways of kind of thinking about these issues that are just shaping our lives day in and day out. And let's start with the pandemic.

And I think these growing news reports that have circulated in the last seven to 10 days about how cases are falling globally and falling precipitously, down almost 50% in Canada, almost 70% in the UK, 50% in the United States. And a lot of epidemiologists interestingly pointing out that these cases are falling not because of the vaccines, possibly in the UK, but generally the decline here seems to be related to something else. We're not entirely sure. So I want to kind of have you respond to this as a kind of political scientist from the perspective of how governments should be reacting to this decline and maybe more importantly, how they should be managing public expectations going forward. Great question, Roger. And let's just stop a minute and say, great news finally, that we've got this really dramatic decline in. numbers since January of this year. And you're right, we don't know why. It is not entirely the

vaccines. We in Canada are not vaccinated. We're seeing a drop. In Britain, they are vaccinated. They're seeing a drop. So we know that the vaccines are not accounting for this. The fact that we are, don't know why, should make governments very cautious. and they should be very cautious because if we go overboard on this one too early, Rudyard, we will be right back in it. And I think public tolerance for that, especially in democratic countries, is very, very low. So overall governments, go slow, find out what's going on. Don't react to people who are stir crazy and have cabin fever and we'll do almost anything to get out of their house.

And that describes me. Yeah, let me try to channel the stir crazies out there, myself included, which is that, again, we don't know everything, but the initial kind of analysis out of the expert community is that this virus seems to be evidencing the pattern of a seasonal respiratory illness, like influenza, for example, so that it has a peak. Maybe that peak is the result of the Christmas season, people gathering together, and then the numbers fall off precipitously. So why not acknowledge that something dramatic is changing here and that we have the capacity to act on the basis of that dramatic declining cases and start an opening up process to save our mental sanity, to save our economies, to get kids back in school to do all those good things. I mean, it just seems like we're creating another set of excuses not to act. And those

excuses are, and I'm sure you're going to talk about them right now, it's the variance. So now there's another reason not to acknowledge this really remarkable decline in the case count. You channeled me, Roger. There are variants out there. There's a say you gave your but there's some really good news, by the way, on the UK variant, and that's coming out of the drop in Britain after the vaccines, despite the variant circulating widely, widely in the UK. So at least one variant is not defeating the vaccine. So great news.

But there's a South African variant, and of course viruses mutate. They're smart. Now, they mutate in two ways. They mutate and they become more threatening, but they also mutate as fewer hosts are around. Then we get fewer hosts when people are vaccinated. And it's harder for them to find a comfortable place to replicate. So what's going on here really matters?

Seasonality, which you talked about. Well, it's really tough to make that argument to explain the drop in Canada. It is still very cold here. We should not get this seasonal drop now. and you know from past flu, incidents of flu in Canada, we don't get out of it until about March

when it really gets a little, a little bit warmer. So I'm really skeptical of seasonality. If it's not seasonality, it's only two things, and you don't like the first. It's lockdowns, along with a lot more mask wearing

than we even saw two months ago, particularly in the United States. And, you know, masks are great. They're just as good vaccines if you wear them well. And so we're seeing that. And of course, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, we are really

getting close. You know, when you vaccinate one third of the population that our number, how fast the virus replicates, in the UK, for instance, this is really great news. It's down to 0.7. The virus cannot sustain itself

over time at 0.7. Yeah, anything below 1. Okay, but let me go back to you as a political scientist with an idea here. And I don't want to downplay this potential seriousness of the variance, especially the South African one, which seems to, unlike the UK one, even with the Pfizer vaccine reporting this week, lowered efficacy against the South African variant. But as a political scientist, do you worry about how large systems, most notably bureaucracies, get on what's called path dependency.

They have goal seeking as part of their institutional culture. They have an obsession, clearly, with case counts, with controls, with systems that have been put into place. These are not agile institutions that are able to change quickly based on a different information set that's facing them. And I guess what I'm concerned a bit about, especially here in Canada, but I think people in Europe listening to this. podcast might share this worry is that we've now created over almost a year a toolkit that the

government is using. And that toolkit has its own momentum now. It's not, it's kind of like turning the Titanic around. It's not easy for government to acknowledge that, wow, things have changed. We can start behaving differently. We don't have to be on this kind of relentless is path dependency with these series of, I think, kind of oversized, unnualensed responses. It's kind of like doing heart surgery with a meat cleaver. I mean, tell me I'm wrong. Well, you're wrong. You're not wrong that bureaucracies are large, get set on a path, very tough to turn around.

It's like turning around a huge ocean liner as opposed to a little dingy is the only way I can talk about it. But that's not true Rudyard at the political level. The upside for, and let's bring it home in Canada, whether it's, you know, let's go in the province of Quebec or it's Ford in Ontario or it's Kenny in Alberta. The upside is just huge. They are champing at the bet, and we see this tug of war going on. It's just beneath the surface between them and there

and scientists who are advising them. They are desperate to change. course, they are the captains at the boat yelling, you know, turn this thing around. The real issue here is how do you compare the upside risk and the downside risk? Let's see, the downside risk, if you do this too early, and we are hit by a very large third wave, which is the product of the variance, which most people, most of the scientific community who are looking at Canada think is the more likely scenario, you can be clobbered. But clobbered.

And I, if you, so that's the downside risk. The upside risk, you're right. People have obituated to this now. So if we get a premier coming out and saying, hang on, folks, we need another two months to get the vaccines going in for the weather to get warmer. I don't think politicians will get clovered. Right. Yeah.

It's not just, I think, the political leaders who, who I think we need to focus on. I think it's a culture within the public health authorities. Maybe I feel that's especially strong here in Canada of really thinking about this pretty close to a zero risk challenge. I mean, they are still, I think some of them, I think somewhat foolheartedly, believing in a COVID-zero, a COVID elimination strategy. And I worry that, you know, at a certain point, we've got to get on with our lives. We've got to get on with our economy.

We've got to get on for the sake of our collective mental health. And if we're seeing, as we are dropping cases, dropping hospitalizations, presumably dropping deaths, you know, do we just have to live with a bit more risk? It's uncomfortable. I know people don't like it. Every death is a tragedy, but there just isn't the ability here to move on a COVID-Zero elimination. approach in the face of a virus which is now endemic. It will be here for years, if not decades. So here's some good news, Roger, that COVID-zero mentality is not present in our public health community in Canada, either inside government or outside government. Everybody understands COVID

is now endemic. It's with us. We manage it. What's the goal here? And I think that's where we were comparing upside and downside risk. We need to get everybody. the long-term care homes vaccinated. We need to get frontline health care workers vaccinated. That's coming over the next five weeks. And then we need to begin to vaccinate the most vulnerable. And that really are essential workers who are packed together closely and some of the remaining older folk.

Once you do that, you really drastically reduce the death rate. And your argument begins to make a lot of sense. So I say to you, Rudyard, patience, another. seven or eight weeks, we'll see that death rate really plummet. And then the risk calculation is very different. Yeah, I just hope businesses and people dealing with mental health and other things can hold on over that period of time because there is a big opportunity cost that we're all going to bear. You've been listening to a sample of the Monk members-only podcast.

To access the rest of the episode, consider becoming a member. Membership is free and available at W. W. 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 podcast. Thanks for listening.