What A Day - Live From The Epicenter

Episode Date: March 27, 2020

The United States now has the most known COVID-19 cases in the world. We discuss the areas that have been hit hardest and how they’re handling the outbreak Epidemiologist and host of “America Dissected” Dr. Abdul El-Sayed answers more of your most pressing COVID-19 questions.And in headlines: the US indicts Maduro, a half-billion dollar legal win for Maryland HBCUs, and Meghan Markle’s first post-Royal gig.

It's Friday, March 26th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick, and this is What A Day, wishing you a happy Casual Friday in the golden age of Casual Fridays. Honestly, I can't wait for the whole Casual Weekend and the next Casual Week. I'm casual from now until the end, folks. Duck! from now until the end, folks. Dark. On today's show, we ask epidemiologist Abdul El-Sayed your coronavirus questions and then some headlines. But first, the latest.

It's the hardest thing we've ever had to do. To stay stuck in our house. Just watching all this bad news. It's the hardest thing we've ever had to try. To stay six feet apart when we go outside. Wow. Okay, so my face is hot from secondhand embarrassment, but that was Nick Lachey of 98 Degrees with more coronavirus remixes. He's also from Cincinnati, and I guess I'll give him a pass for that. All right, we got a quick bit of congressional news to get us started. We're going to keep it short since, you know, we went into a lot of detail yesterday on the $2 trillion bill that passed in the Senate. The bill is now heading over to the House, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she expects it to pass today. But she's also already talking about another potential bill after this one. So, Gideon, what do we know about that? Yeah, so to start the $2 trillion bill,

it's called the CARES Act, by the way, there are always acronyms for these things, is meant to prop people up temporarily. And there are several things that didn't make it into the bill, some of which we've discussed. Pelosi says she's going to push for another bill that will give an additional chunk of money to state and local governments, expand access to family and medical leave, and increase food stamp money. Republicans haven't been as eager to get going on another round, so we'll have to wait and see on how this develops. But in the meantime, if the impacts of the coronavirus on the economy weren't clear already, we've got a new number. Over 3 million people applied for unemployment benefits last week. That's just week one. It's the highest number ever recorded. In fact, it's four times higher than the record. That is wild. I mean, a number like that, it's, you know, basically means almost

everyone is either directly affected or they definitely know someone who is affected by, you know, just the rampant unemployment in this weird time. Yeah. And also the number only represents people who were able to file successfully. But the true number is likely much higher. For example, according to the New York Times, the spike in claims was so large that many unemployment offices had trouble keeping up with it. Goodness. All right. Well, brace yourself for another number. The United States is now the country with the most known COVID-19 cases in the world, with over 81,000 cases. So let's just get into some of the areas that are hardest hit at

the moment. Yeah. So much of the focus remains on New York, the epicenter in the country right now. And there have been a number of really harrowing, scary reports about conditions in hospitals that are overwhelmed with COVID patients there. The state's governor, Andrew Cuomo, said on Thursday that New York had over 37,000 confirmed cases. And the rate of hospitalizations, one thing that they're monitoring, increased by 40% in a day. So to combat that, Cuomo is talking about building at least one facility with more than 1,000 beds in each of New York City's boroughs and some surrounding counties. That's desperately needed. President Trump also said that the Navy's hospital ship will arrive in Manhattan on Monday, which would bolster the city's hospitals. Again, we'll have to wait and see if the word from the president is good. Also, the administration sent

a letter to governors which said the federal government wants to create risk assessments for counties throughout the country to give these states guidance about increasing, relaxing, or keeping current social distancing plans. So areas would get classified as high, medium, or low risk. And to this point, I mean, governors have largely had to take the lead in the absence of leadership from the administration. That's right. And when I watched the press conference, because I guess I just love being bummed out, you know, obviously everyone's question was, well, how do you keep people in their county if they're sick? It's going to be hard to enforce, but... Exactly.

All right. Well, what do we know about the latest responses from the states overall? Well, so given the situation in New York, leaders in other states are implementing restrictions on travelers that are coming from there. That includes Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who said that he would sign an executive order instituting a 14-day quarantine for people flying from the New York City metro area or flying from New Orleans. That follows similar types of messages from Hawaii, Alaska, and Florida. Louisiana has also become an area of concern. Governor John Bel Edwards said that the current case growth trajectory is on par with Spain and Italy. And according to a recent study from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the growth rate of those new infections in Louisiana was the fastest in the world when comparing areas during the two weeks that followed their first confirmed diagnoses,

meaning that it's off to a kind of scarily rapid start. There's also reporting that Detroit is experiencing a similarly high infection rate, a problem that is compounded by the relative poverty in and around the city, and that many homes in the city have reportedly had their water shut off due to delinquent bills, with only some getting that restored. Michigan is also among the states with the biggest outbreaks. So yeah, a lot of places that are going to go through a lot of pain that we'll have to keep an eye on. But Akilah, what's the latest internationally? All right, so let's just start with Spain. The death toll there exceeded 3,400 yesterday. Spain also had a record day in new cases. In Italy, there's a little bit better news

as the deaths have mostly leveled off, showing that, you know, the distancing measures that they implemented a couple weeks ago are starting to take effect. And then in India, 1.3 billion with a B people are now on lockdown for the next three weeks. And people were given just four hours notice before the lockdown took effect. That's 1.3 billion people. India only has 700 cases, which is great news. And it does have public health care, but their system has been overloaded already in a country where there's less than a single doctor for every 1,000 citizens. So tough. Things are a little tough right now, but lots of stuff is happening.

And if you want to help and are able to, head over to our Coronavirus Relief Fund. It's at cricut.com slash coronavirus. So far, you all have helped us raise over $600,000 for people that need food assistance or have lost their jobs. So we cannot thank you enough. Each day brings new information from scientists and public health officials about the novel coronavirus. For example, this week we learned that researchers believe the virus is not mutating very rapidly as of right now. Now, if that stays the case, it could mean that immunity from a potential vaccine or for

those who have had the virus would last longer. Now, these are just preliminary findings as people learn new things, and they could change over time. That's right. We're also learning more about COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, as more doctors from around the world are treating it. So to help us stay up to speed, we're checking in regularly with Abdul El-Sayed. He's a physician, epidemiologist, and Detroit's former health commissioner. We spoke with him yesterday and started off by asking him about the mental health implications of long-term social distancing. distancing? So, you know, we're in this sort of unprecedented situation right now where we've never really had to do this level of stay at home. You know, usually when you talk about, you know, stay at home, which, which derives from shelter in place, you're talking about a very

limited threat that you're supposed to stay away from. Right now we're talking about, you know, non-delimited stay at home. Like, we don't really know when this is going to end. And on top of that, it's also not just the fact that we're socially distancing, which for a lot of people can mean social isolation. It's also that we are watching a very anxiety-provoking mass trauma affect us all. And one of the hardest things about it is that, you know, the only thing that we can do, which absolutely is something that we're doing, is stay home and stay away from people. And so that contrast of knowing that you're stuck at home for however long, and you don't really know how long, and watching something really scary happen, I think

can really take a toll on people's mental health. And so it's really, really important that for you, social distancing doesn't mean social isolation. Reach out to folks. And even if you don't need it today, it may be that somebody you know and love does. And so make sure that you're spending time reaching out to folks. And don't pretend like this isn't something that you're struggling with, right? Everybody's got anxiety about this, and this is perfectly normal. And if you don't, then you should really be asking why. So it's okay to like open up and say, this is scary and I'm scared and I'm frustrated and I wish this wasn't happening because, you know, we can't, we can't carry those emotions on our own, in our own home, all alone. It's really important to share them with folks. And so this is real. The mental health consequences are real. There are a lot of

services that you can engage with and it's really important for folks who have any sort of underlying mental illness challenges that they are caring for themselves and making sure to be Twitter, you know, since we're only now testing for the virus in America, you know, is it possible that people who had similarly bad sicknesses in, you know, December or January may have had it as early as then? Or is that just sort of like, I guess, for some people wishful thinking that they're good now? It's certainly it's certainly possible that that people might have had the virus before we knew that they had had it. Obviously, we were late to the situation with the testing, and we know that coronavirus was around. The one thing I will tell people, though, is that the dangerous assumption that might be made is that, well, I had symptoms that felt like coronavirus. They probably were coronavirus. So I'm all right now. No, that's not how this works. And it's important that folks make sure to follow the social distancing

protocols that are laid out because collective action is what we need right now to take this thing on. And so, you know, unless you know for sure a doctor has told you you've had it, then it really would be unsafe to assume you have. And then the other side of that is we don't even know that if folks have had it, if they have full immunity or how long that immunity lasts. And so this is still something we're learning about. It's only really been five months since humanity's known about this. So we're still characterizing it scientifically. And again, this is something that could change, too, based on just more studying. But is it normal for symptoms to take five days to come on or does it typically vary widely?

I think I've seen anything from a range of 48 hours to two weeks. And then can we quickly explain how long people are usually getting sick for? And there's also this term that's going around the quote, second week crash. So the incubation period is the period between when you are exposed to the virus and when you start feeling the symptoms. And you're right, that's between two days and 14 days, so two days and two weeks. And the symptoms vary widely. There's starting to be a consensus now that people can go asymptomatic and then folks can have very, very serious symptoms. And this second week crash is, it's a term that's emerging from folks

who are caring for patients with serious COVID in hospitals. What is really important is that, you know, if you think you might have symptoms, to call your doctor and let them know. I'm not saying necessarily you should go to your doctor, but I am saying you should call them. And if your symptoms get serious enough where you're feeling extremely sick, and in particular, if you're having any sort of shortness of breath, then it really is important to have that conversation with your doctor and ask,

what should I do next? Because from what I understand is that you can feel okay and things can be on the up and up and then the symptoms just get a lot more serious really quickly. And, you know, that's the danger point. And so you just want to have constant communication, have checked in with your doctor and be monitoring yourself for, you know, especially shortness of breath, because that's the most dangerous symptom. Right. Another question that we were kind of kicking around is we keep hearing that it's more dangerous for people with a variety of pre-existing conditions, including asthma, diabetes, heart and lung issues. But do we have a percentage for how fatal it is if you contract

COVID and you have any of those pre-existing conditions? Or is it too early to tell? Unfortunately, it's too early to tell because even when you talk about pre-existing conditions, you know, one person's diabetes is not the same as the next person's diabetes. One person's asthma is not the same as the next person's asthma. And so, you know, generally speaking, the more serious the underlying chronic disease, the higher the risk of serious illness with COVID. And so, you know, that is sort of a baseline way of thinking about it. And, you know, the younger the individual, the more robust their ability to rebound. And so, you know, what we're kind of understanding a rule of thumb of thinking about this is that this disease is just more fatal in people who have less health reserve, right?

And who can withstand the punishment that the virus delivers and bounce back. And that's why, you know, younger folks do better and folks without underlying illness do better. And so it follows that the more serious the underlying illness and or the older the individual, the worse the outcomes with with the illness. So this has been a major question from our audience. And there's a few variations of this question, but, you know, people are trying to order from local stores now. Some people are still ordering from Amazon. What's a good plan for disinfecting packaging and what precautions should we take, you know, to keep ourselves and our delivery workers safe? The other version of that question is like, if my dog meets another dog and somebody touches my dog, should I throw my dog into a volcano?

No, don't ever throw your dog in a volcano. Cannot endorse. So look, you know, if a dog is touching another dog, that's fine. That's perfectly normal. And I think that's okay. You obviously want to stay away from other individuals. And from what we understand, our usual domestic animals are not a nidus for the disease. I would say that generally when it comes to delivery folks,

the best thing is to allow them to leave it at the door and then afterwards to bring it in. I might even, if you have some Clorox wipes, just wipe it off before it even comes inside. Or what you might even do is open it up outside and then, you know, wash your hands and pull out whatever it is that you want to pull out. But one of the things I hear often is that this is a really OCD compelling kind of disease because you're like, wait, I could take this all the way down, right? Like there are so many things you could do. I would just say that, you know, practice these kinds of behaviors within reason. Stay away from folks where you can wipe things down that have been outside or touched by somebody else.

And then, you know, after you've handled them, wash your hands. And then from there, you know, let it go. At the end of the day, the best single piece of advice you can give somebody in this moment if you're trying to avoid it is just wash your hands a lot, you know, to protect yourself and protect others. That was Abdul El-Sayed. If you want to hear more from him about coronavirus, subscribe to his podcast, America Dissected. New episodes come out every Tuesday and Friday. It's Friday, WOD Squad. Gotta stay in on Fridays. Every day. You know, whatever.

But it's time to check in. It's been a long week, but we made it to our days off. Finally, Gideon, today is going to be kind of a weird question that I thought about last night. So, you know, we've been watching more TV and movies as one would do when they're inside. So what do you think is the least on brand movie that you love? Like for you, like your personal brand? Ooh. Honestly, it's a thing where it's like,

I don't know what exactly people would expect. For some, I would say, but you know this, for some I would say like a goofy movie, which absolutely rules. It's so good. I maintain is one of the best Disney musicals. But then, I don't know, more recently, like I was really into Little Women.

I thought it was awesome. One of my favorites from, was that this year, last year? Time is... That was, I guess, December-ish. Okay, time is no longer a concept. But yeah, that movie ruled. I don't know if that's really off-brand. I'm not answering this question well, but... No, it's good.

Same key for you. What's a weird one that you like? All right, so, I mean, I think my own personal brand is pretty chill and like aesthetic and I don't know, overwritten and perhaps erring on the feminine side. And you know what movie I fucking love? Interesting. I love Rocky. Okay. Rocky is like I can't even do 10 pushups.

And I'm like, I will watch Rocky run up the stairs on repeat and beat up everybody. I'll watch Rocky one through five. You are you Creed Hive also oh Creed Hive forever that was like I think the first role I mean you know full disclosure I am still finishing The Wire but I think it was the first role that I saw Michael B Jordan in uh that made me like go back through all of his other work because I was like oh this is such a good movie it's really it's really really good it's actually it's weird too because I was like, oh, this is such a good movie. It's really, it's really, really good. It's actually, it's weird too because the sequel, like, they basically just do the same movie again, but you're just like, this is amazing. Like, I'm down.

I would say that is all of the Rocky movies are the same movie, but just different characters. But I love it. I don't know why. All right. Well, this was a quick temperature check. Oh, and the temperature is just right. So if you're home, wash your hands, call your friends, have a beautiful weekend, and we will have lots to catch up on by Monday. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. other officials of importing hundreds of tons of cocaine into the U.S. in a decades-long international drug trafficking conspiracy. Analysts are calling the White House's move

an unexpected and major escalation of their campaign to kick Maduro out of office. The Trump administration recognizes opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela, not Maduro. Right now, there's no indication that the government plans to extradite Maduro, who is still in Venezuela. Four historically black colleges and universities in Maryland were awarded half a billion dollars by the state to compensate for years of institutional racial discrimination. This comes after a lawsuit filed over a decade ago by a coalition of alumni who argued that Maryland copied programs created at black universities to lure prospective black students to other state universities. This had the effect of worsening existing funding inequities

at HBCUs. Studies have shown that HBCU students pay more for student loans and that those schools have to pay more for bond issues than their counterparts. Truly shocking. Yeah. The money will go to help the schools create new degree programs, recruit faculty, and invest in scholarships and financial aid. You know? All right, well, Meghan Markle's first acting job

since leaving the royal family will be to provide voiceover for the Disney nature documentary, Elephant, set to debut on Disney Plus next Friday. Duchess Meghan, if you need tips on getting good audio and recording from home,

please contact wad sometimes it it works best to do it under a blanket um the show's announcement comes as duchess megan and prince harry set up a permanent residence in the u.s they moved to la recently can relate leaving their temporary home in canada before borders started closing due to the pandemic hope they don't get used to this version of Los Angeles, though. Normally, the lines at Pink's Hot Dogs are just so much longer. Yeah, and you can get into Disneyland. The evil Ace Ventura, who America has come to know as the Tiger King, is using his media moment to seek justice. Joe Exotic Maldonado Passage, who currently stars in a hit Netflix documentary about his scary Oklahoma cat zoo,

has filed a $94 million lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of the Interior. Exotic alleges that his arrest in 2019 for, spoiler alert, attempted murder for hire of his longtime rival and his euthanization of tigers was motivated by the government's private agenda against small zoos and circuses. That is a well-known government bias, folks. Joe also seeks a pardon from President Trump. Good luck with that, Mr. Exotic, but based on Donald's love of Vegas alone,

he is definitely Team Jeff Lowe. Yes, and those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, drop a coin in our wishing well, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just the ingredients in a can of Lysol like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe.

I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And we'll see you at Pink's Hot Dogs in one to three months. Get in line, my friend. Chitty dogs. What a day is a product of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Thank you.