The New Yorker Radio Hour - Jill Lepore on How a Pandemic Ends

Episode Date: May 15, 2020

Jill Lepore discusses the “stay at home” campaigns that ran on radio stations during the polio years, devised to keep children indoors; she is especially fond of a program that featured a young Hubert Humphrey reading comics. Lepore finds solace in revisiting the desperate measures of that era. “One of the reasons I study history,” she says, “is I like to see how things began, so I can imagine how bad things end.” She describes the momentous day, in 1955, when Dr. Jonas Salk and his colleagues announced the success of the polio vaccine trials. “That’s the great blessing of a vaccination program,” Lepore says. “We forget how bad the disease was.” Plus, David Remnick speaks with three mayors who have to negotiate the task of reopening their cities safely. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Much of the country is beginning to reopen at least some businesses and activities. A little later this hour, I'll talk with some of the mayors who are trying to negotiate how to do that without putting huge numbers of people at risk. But some restrictions are likely to extend through the summer and perhaps beyond. The prospect of that is daunting. for everyone, not least for anyone with kids in the house. After months without going to school,

the idea of keeping kids indoors away from their friends, their sports, summer camps, and scouting trips, it seems like more than a parent can bear. But it's happened before and not that long ago. I'm Jill Lepoor. I'm a professor of history at Harvard. I'm also a staff writer at The New Yorker, And as a historian, I always think a lot about, well, is there comfort to be found in times in the past when people have had harder struggles and gotten through things? And immediately comes to mind for me the stay-at-home campaigns that were run during the polio years. For all the boys and girls of the Northwest during radio's stay-at-home campaign. Now, listen. Polio had first hit the U.S. in 1916.

and some years were worse than others. A lot of viruses abate in the hotter months. But with polio, the warmer the weather, the virus spread faster, but also polio, was most effectively transmitted by water. So in the summer when it got hot, this is before the age of air conditioning. Kids would be outside wanting to go to swimming pools,

jump in the river. And it's not like they have homeschooling assignments. It's the summer. They're supposed to be outside playing catch and playing baseball and drawing hopscotch with chalk on the sidewalk, and it was really hard to keep them inside. And I came across this incredibly charming clip from WCCO in Minneapolis, which had a Sunday morning program called Fun at Home during the Stay at Home campaign.

Well, it's 9-5, and time for all you kids to gather on your radios and listen to the funnies. This morning we have an extra special... And they would do anything to be entertaining to kids. So this clip is from 1940. and it's the fairly young Democratic mayor Hubert Humphrey. I mean, think of him maybe as the Andrew Cuomo of the moment, although more charming. He comes in, volunteers to come into the radio station on Sunday to read the funnies out. We start right off with Blondie, and you know what?

It looks like Blondie and Dagwood are going to go out in a fishing party. Toby, you got any fishing music over there? Yeah, a little bit by the seat. Yeah, that's good. That's fine. Oh, listen to that. Now just take a look at that. There's Dagwood. kids and there's Dagwood right alongside the lake shore there and he says i don't know why it is i can't catch a fish doesn't he look oh he just looks all down in the dumps you know so he loves it you can tell because he brings his kids with him like he does voices and he tries to be dagwood and

blondie and his kids keep asking questions and they want him to read Popeye instead a can of worms there and look at that funny hat on there just like he's hunting lion you see that skip and he says I have one of them too. Oh, do you have, sure, you have a hat like that. And then Dagwood says they pull out fish as fast as they throw them out. And when I first listened to this clip, maybe in the fall some time, I was like, it's so adorable and it's so sweet and it's so quaint. But somehow the pathos of it didn't strike me. One of the strange, maybe only blessings of the COVID pandemic is that.

that kids seem to be so far less vulnerable to it. But with polio is exactly the opposite. For a long time, polio was called the baby plague. It was just this heartbreaking name just to think about that. What it does to know that your children, babies, toddlers, preschoolers are the most vulnerable. Fishing on private property, huh? Without a license, huh? Is that a policeman?

Oh, that's a policeman, you bet you. Without a long nose. Oh, he got a long nose. Yeah, I wonder who that's a funny-looking guy are, right? Like, I just, it didn't really hit me that this was a desperate measure. It just seemed to me adorable. And I listen to it again. I almost listen to Hubert Humphrey with what I think of as COVID ears.

And it's still sweet, it's still charming. I still love listening to it. But it's also quietly down. Mr. Humphrey, we're going to have a song by Toby Prince, the original sad-sax song. Toby, take over with put your arms around me. Cuttle up a little closer. Lovely, lovely, love be mine. One of the reasons I study history is I like to see how things began so that I can imagine how bad things end.

So there were good polio years and bad polio years, but the worst polio year in the United States was 1952. So a few years after Hubert Humphrey made that recording, reading the funnies. 58,000 Americans got infected. And it was also the year, though, that a young epidemiologist named Jonas Sock developed a vaccine. A virus that causes polio has been successfully grown inside chicken eggs. may lead to the development of a potent vaccine to prevent the dreaded disease. A really promising vaccine. A really controversial vaccine, and it had to be tested. And then he began what became the largest field trial in the history of public health.

And finally, in this momentous day, April 12th, 1955, you know, at the beginning of spring. Heading the medical men was Dr. Jonas Soff. Summer's coming. It's going to be another hard polio year. People expected it to be a very hard polio year. The clock is ticking. The calendar is turning. Everybody wants that polio vaccine before the summer of 1955.

And there's this quite incredible announcement it's made at the University of Michigan. Hundreds of reporters go there, and they printed out these press reports with all the details of the results of the field trial that they're going to announce. Reporters pressed forward to get the results the whole world was waiting for. And the reporters are literally climbing over each other, trying to get to the copies of the press release. Like so, I mean, you can imagine that now. It doesn't take a whole lot of imagining to imagine that now. If someone had a vaccine and we'd waited 18 months to know if it worked,

and it works. An historic victory over a dread disease is dramatically unfolded at the University of Michigan. Here, scientists usher in a new medical age with the monumental report. You picture sort of a medieval turdid castle and the trumpeteers blowing their horns and the flags are, you know, the standards are being unfurled and do-t-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. It's just the vaccine works. And, you know, this kind of, and it's the relief, the joy, the exultation, the exhilaration,

the knowledge that this thing could end. modest Dr. Salk answers newsman's questions. The great wealth of events that is accumulated and the experiences of so many is well represented in the report made this morning. You often notice that people from different generations have these different time stamps in their early memories, like there are people whose first memory is of 1969 and watching the Apollo moon landing or whose first memory is of 1963 and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I remember for years when I would ask students with their first memory.

It was of an event of global significance. It was 9-11. I grew up with the vaccine, but people not very much older than I am suffered from polio, watched polio, new people who suffered from polio. But my kids don't know anyone has had polio. I don't think they know how it works or how terrifying it was. And that's the great blessing of a vaccination program. Like we forget how bad the disease was.

But there's a generation of Americans whose most significant early memory is of waiting in line to get the sock vaccine. I have a colleague who I once asked about this, and he said, oh, I can remember the taste of it in my mouth. It was like a sugar drop. It was almost like a lollipop. And my mother said, this will save your life.

You will have a life. And I think about that. And I think about the generation of kids who we can only hope we'll remember the day that they go to get the coronavirus vaccine and it'll be their time stamp staff writer Jill Lippoor

Jill's new history podcast is called The Last Archive from Pushkin Industries and it will include an episode about the fight against polio this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, more to come this is the New Yorker Radio Hour I'm David Remnick

offices, gyms, hair salons, churches, gatherings, and more, are starting to reopen. And even Andrew Cuomo of New York, who hasn't soft-pedaled this disaster, announced that some restrictions will be lifted this month as planned. But what constitutes safe reopening is controversial, particularly in the absence of clear national guidelines, and the president's encouragement of protests against orders issued by state governors. To get a sense of how local leaders are managing the process, I called up the mayors of three cities, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Kansas City, Missouri, and Cheyenne, Wyoming. They've been spared the worst surge of COVID-19 deaths, but not the psychological pressure,

the political upheaval, and the economic wreckage. Andy Burke of Chattanooga declared a state of emergency on March 13th. On April 20th, Burke said that the city would not commit to an arbitrary reopening date, but now the state of Tennessee is reopening and Chattanooga right along with it. Mayor Birk, hello, how are you? Good, how are you today? Not bad. Now, the world has not seen anything like the COVID-19 pandemic in a century, at least. There's no playbook to follow. We all know that. And everybody seems to be improvising and adapting to the changes.

How has the coronavirus changed your job as mayor? Well, it's something I was completely unprepared to deal with. I didn't expect it. We went from Chattanooga being the number of, one city in the country for new jobs, according to Forbes, to trying to prevent people from getting sick and handing out relief to people who need rent payments and businesses who are trying to survive. Well, how badly has your city been affected in terms of the virus, in terms of illness and deaths? Fortunately, we've been much better off than many places. We shut down things extremely early, here. So as of the beginning of May, for example, we are the fourth largest county in Tennessee,

but we only had 1.4% of the cases in our state. We've had 13 deaths, which is quite unfortunate, but our number of cases has not been nearly as large as in other places. Now, recently your governor, Bill Lee, decided to reopen the state. Did you agree with that decision? I did not. Tell me why. Well, we had formed a economic restart group among the big four mayors in Tennessee. That's Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis, and Chattanooga. And we had an entire system set out that would say when we would reopen, the circumstances under which we would reopen,

the things that would cause us to dial back different phases and so on. We essentially went from that to a full-scale reopen where virtually everything other than large-scale events is open on some level. We know that from the CDC guidelines, this is not the public health recommended way to do this. But the governor at the time put down an order saying that no city mayor could control this issue. and instead, at least in our county, said only the county mayor had that authority. Well, I'll be blunt. Do you think that this is a decision that's going to be paid for in human lives? I'm extremely worried that it is.

You know, we're already seeing some numbers climbing. We don't, we can't let them get to the point where it's logarithmic expansion. And for us to do that, we need testing for large groups of people. on a frequent basis. We need to make sure that we're monitoring what our numbers are doing here locally, and this has got to be a non-stop activity at the front of our public policy.

Mr. Mayor, what's your responsibility at this moment? Is it to decide what you believe is best for your city based on consulting experts and scientists, or is it to fulfill the mandate of the state government in Tennessee and what a large portion of your constituency is asking for? for and demanding? Well, I believe that my mandate lies somewhere between those two because I have a legal duty to follow the mandates of our state. My other responsibilities, though, are to speak out for what I think is right for my residents. We do webinars with all of our industries. Yesterday, we had

close to 200 child care providers on a webinar plus close to 100 close contact business owners. So we're trying to do everything that we can to educate people and to speak out about what needs to happen. At the same time, I know that I have a legal obligation to follow what the governor does, and we're going to do that. You know, when I ran for mayor and got elected, which was less than a year ago, I used to say that, you know, the president doesn't make that much of a difference in my daily life and our daily lives in Kansas City. I regret that I have to say that's not the case. Quentin Lucas is the mayor of Kansas City, Missouri. That weekend when the president finally said, this is an important deal. Things are going to be different. We should all have shelter in place or

stay-home orders. You saw it pretty much throughout the country, with the exception of a few holdouts. Republican states, all those sorts of things, having these stay-at-home orders. But I think on the opposite way, as soon as the president tweeted, liberate Michigan, liberate Virginia and your Second Amendment, liberate Minnesota. Then we started seeing more of these protests in state capitals.

I had a protest on the steps of my city hall here in Kansas City. You started seeing kind of this great level of acrimony between different forces, and I think you started seeing the repeal of state hall mortars a little faster than anyone would have recommended. Well, tell me about those protests. What was the rhetoric that you were hearing,

how representative were there? You know, I'd like to think that they weren't that representative, but it was, they were certainly loud, you know, in a time where the news is looking at data, which is, I'm always seen it as actually deaths and tragedies, but, you know, I think people wanted to look at something that was different than a number. Instead, they saw a bunch of people with,

don't tread on me flags and, you know, who had bullhorns and were saying, zaning in some ways really bizarre off-the-wall thing. You know, prior to this time in life, I've never been compared to Adolf Hitler. I don't think in any way any steps that I'm taking or any governor in our country is taking. There's anything that dramatic other than trying to save lives. And, you know, it's been frustrating to see that. So I think they've been more effective than their size has let on.

But you see, forgive me, Mr. Mayor. I just want to be clear on this point. You seem to be connecting the insults that have been directed at your way. I think you've been described as Nazi-like in how you've instituted restrictions in the city. And you're drawing a line between being called a Nazi and the rhetoric from the White House. I am. I do think that there is a connection to where we are. I think as we've unleashed some level of total detachment from, I think, science

and understanding why rules are being issued in the way they are, I think you have seen an increase in very negative sentiment. You know, some on the left have said that now that all of our efforts aren't stern enough, that there's blood on my hands, so I guess it's a two-way street. Beyond rhetoric, what kind of practical problems has the White House created for you? Has Donald Trump created for you as you try to manage Kansas City's daily life? I think there is an inconsistency in messaging that we, have right now. I'm one who has a concern with the fact that, you know, we're trying to say that

wearing a mask is important and the day that the president announced wearing a mask. He said, you know, I'm not going to wear one. And, you know, some people say you need it. Some people don't do what you will. It is shocking sometimes. How many people that may not even subscribe politically to the president's viewpoint? So listen to him. Still listen to what he says. And then still, particularly some of our younger people, model that level of behavior. I think the fact that those of us in cities, particularly where our states are not giving us much guidance, are looking for what are good rules for reopening schools, what are rules for summer student activities, swimming pools, that sort of thing.

And I think the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been muzzled. Basically what I've heard is that we should reopen from Washington. And that's kind of the only consistent message we've gotten. And sometimes you certainly want to sit back and say, can I just get some clear guidance from someone else so that I'm not exchanging text messages with superintendents in the Kansas city suburbs about, well, you know, can we have events in August or can we not? It's not clear. We don't know. The CDC says one thing, but we heard something different. The World's World Warth Organization, is that even a credible organization now because we've heard them attacked in the White

House? I mean, it's frustrating and it matters, and it gets down to everyday decisions that mayors of small towns and big cities are making all across our country. How do you go about being mayor? You don't know. have all the usual instruments available to you, ribbon cuttings, meeting with people. So how do you go about communicating with people and staying in touch with your community and getting people to do what you think is necessary? You know, we've done a lot more outreach to press than I think I ever had ever wanted, really. You know, I have a weekly segment on a hip-hop station here in Kansas City to try to reach a crowd that may not catch me on, you know, our national public

radio affiliate. I have a weekly segment on Spanish language radio. We continue through social media through pretty much everything we can to get people to recognize how important the moment is and how we're not doing this as part of some sort of vast left-wing conspiracy to keep them indoors. And so that's, you know, the nature of what we do each day. But it certainly has changed. I mean, I'm an inner city politician, Right. A lot of my trajectory to being mayor in Kansas City was going to black churches every Sunday, which is something I don't do. But I get to talk to ministers still. I try to make sure I message with them. And we'll keep doing that for as long as this crisis is around. Mayor Lucas, thank you so much. And I wish you and Kansas City all the very best. Thank you. Marion Orr is the mayor of Cheyenne, Wyoming. It's the largest city in the state. And her county has seen over 100 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Mayor Orr, welcome to the show. Thank you. Now, how bad has your community been hit in terms of economic terms?

How do you quantify that? Well, we are having daily budget discussions. Our budget is due June 1st, and we have absolutely been, we've been devastated. And then fortunately, for not only my community, but for Wyoming, this couldn't have come in a worse time because Wyoming is so heavily dependent on the coal industry and oil and gas. and seeing oil prices in the negatives devastates our economy, and then to have sales and use tax plummet, we're seeing a 30% decrease in revenue,

and we don't see it coming back anytime soon. Now, mayors are often cheerleaders for their city. They should be, and you're often urging people to come to your city, come to Wyoming, and spend money. But right now, you found yourself in a position where you've had to do the opposite, discouraging some of your, even your out-of-state neighbors from coming and visiting. What's that change been like? Well, it's been very difficult. We're only 25

miles away from Colorado in Weld County, which has seen a very large number of cases. And we are one of the few states that did not issue a shelter in place, a stay at home. And what we witnessed several weeks ago was the weather started to get better. And we saw folks from Colorado coming up and purchasing out-of-state, you know, non-resident fishing licenses and camping in our parks. And unfortunately, we had to do a shutdown on that. And my message has been, hey, we love you to come visit. Come visit Wyoming. It's a great place. But we just ask for a little bit of patience, and we can't wait to welcome everybody back in. So tell me about the policy of not doing sheltering in place. Why not? Well, it came from our governor who took direction from our state

health officer out here in Wyoming. We kind of maybe pride ourselves in the fact that many of us have been socially distancing before any of us really knew the phrase. We're very rural. I mean, our entire state's population is less than 600,000. We've really had to follow the lead of the governor and take a really unified approach as far as how the state operates. Now, I wonder as a Republican and as a citizen and you're watching President Trump in Washington, what do you think of his messaging? What do you think of it when he says liberate Michigan, for example? Well, I'll be honest. I've had to turn it off because it's, and perhaps it's because I'm dealing with my own issues here. We certainly have had protests here in Cheyenne at the Capitol, you know,

the right to assemble. I think that really harsh rhetoric. is not what we need right now. We need, we don't need politics. And this virus, not only does it not have a date, but it's bipartisan. It's not a Republican and it's not a Democrat. And we really need to, I think, communicate as leaders in a very mindful and using the medical expertise

that we have available to us. Now, the coronavirus has placed a huge strain on the city's budget. There's an $8 million dollar debt. deficit now, which is a big deficit for your city. What plan do you have, what plan can you possibly have to get the city back on track financially at this point? Well, with most city budgets, our largest expense is payroll. And so unfortunately, we've had to furlough 16 employees. We have not filled 15 positions that were open. We have roughly 400 and some employees. So that's

really a pretty significant number. We are also looking at probably not hiring additional police and additional fire, even though we're a growing population. So certainly payroll is top of the mind. One of the things that we talked about today was that even in City Hall, we don't need square footage. We need technology. We need to be spending money towards technology because so much work can be done.

from home we've learned. We don't need this massive building with HVAC issues and, you know, electrical costs. We need technology. So in other words, in a very profound way, the virus is going to change municipal life, not just for a little while, but maybe permanently. I believe it absolutely shall. Perhaps perhaps the way we do business and deliver government services shall be changed forever. Mayor Orr, thank you very much and all the very best to your city. Thank you very much. That's Marion Orr, the mayor of Cheyenne, Wyoming. We also heard from Quentin Lucas, mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, and Andy Burke of Chattanooga, Tennessee. I'm David Remnick, and thanks for joining us this week. See you next time.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus. of tune yards, with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Cario, Riannon Corby, Calalia, David Krasnow, Caroline Lester, Gauphin and Putuguello, Louis Mitchell, Michelle Moses, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Alison McAdam, Morgan Flannery, Danny Bonner, Mung Faye Chen, and Emily Mann. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.