What A Day - The Cure For Coronavirus Panic

Episode Date: January 30, 2020

As of Wednesday night, there are more than 7,700 coronavirus cases in at least 20 countries, including 5 cases in the U.S. Still, it’s not time for you to freak out. We discuss how the media has historically reacted to would-be epidemics and why the CDC says the risk of a stateside coronavirus outbreak is low.The Guardian announced that it would no longer accept advertising from fossil fuel extractive companies, making them the first major news organization to do so. And in headlines: Dersh’s bad defense, Success Kid sues, and a spirit cruise in Santa Cruz.

It's Thursday, January 30th. I'm Gideon Resnick. And I'm Erin Ryan, filling in for Akilah Hughes. And this is What A Day, keeping you in the know when your nation's president does bad grammar. Does bad grammar? Yeah, that's what I said. But I, how do you, no, you don't speak good. On today's show, we'll bring you an update on the coronavirus and how epidemics have been handled in the recent past. Then why the Guardian newspaper will no longer run ads for fossil fuel companies, plus some headlines. Good morning. A plane carrying about 200 Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China, landed at an Air Force base near Riverside, California on Wednesday.

The passengers have been screened for and are currently being monitored for coronavirus, but none have tested positive yet. Again, and I cannot stress this enough, good morning. Good morning to you and all. As of Wednesday night, there are more than 7,700 coronavirus cases in at least 20 countries, including five cases in the United States. All of the more than 170 deaths from the disease have occurred on mainland China. China's taking unprecedented measures in the face of all of this. 50 million people are under travel restrictions. Wuhan is on lockdown. Stores and markets are closed down to stem the spread of the disease.

The World Health Organization has yet to declare this a global health emergency, but they're meeting again today to vote on that decision. Okay. And now I'm worried about getting coronavirus on my flight to Iowa this weekend because that's just how my brain works. One half is worrying. The other half is relating things I hear to my personal life and well-being. If I wear one of those surgical masks, though, I assume I'm good to go. Okay. First of all, this could not be less about you. Second of all, experts don't think those surgical masks really, they're not sure they do anything. Okay.

Well, you know what? Do you mind taking over this? Because I'm going to leave. I'm going to go. I'm going to cancel the flight, and then I'm going to walk out of here. Okay. I cannot think of a worse excuse to not do your job than coronavirus, especially right now. Well, then what else is? Okay. Okay. I want everyone who is

thinking of calling in coronavirus to work to take a few deep cleansing breaths because the coronavirus outbreak is impacting the lives of millions of Chinese people. That's true. But right now, I want to talk about the way that we're handling information about the coronavirus here in the States. Not well for me. As of right now, the CDC says the risk of a coronavirus outbreak here is low, but we are at high risk for something that can go viral a lot more easily than airborne disease, and that is misinformation and fear-mongering disinformation. Do you remember Ebola?

I actually do. And when we were talking about it earlier, I was like, wow, that was a whole era in 2014 where you basically couldn't turn on any cable news channel without hearing people freaking out about it, that it was literally knocking at the doors and coming to get everyone. Right. In 2014, thousands of people in West Africa were infected with Ebola, and more than 10,000 people died in the two years between 2014 and 2016. But only four cases were confirmed in the U.S. But that didn't stop people like Rand Paul, Chris Christie. Remember Chris Christie? Oh, yeah. And Donald Trump from resorting to absurd hysterics like blaming President Obama for the spread of the disease. Good and normal. Demanding health care workers be unconstitutionally quarantined when they return from West Africa and generally spreading fear in order to serve their political ends.

And oh, did I mention a midterm election was coming up? Those two things don't seem related to me at all. Oh, because it was. And there are people in the U.S. in 2014 who used the epidemic in West Africa as an opportunity to help their political careers rather than use it as a call to help millions of Africans who were impacted. And at this current moment, at least, it seems that Trump is comparatively calmer. Yesterday, he tweeted that he had been briefed on the coronavirus outbreak and that he was confident that officials were monitoring it. And to prove that this meeting happened, Trump tweeted four photos

of men sitting around a conference table. Also, to be honest, the way in which I proved that I attended work in the face of grave danger, like the cold, falling into a manhole, things of this nature. Okay, you live in Los Angeles where it's never cold and nobody ever walks anywhere. I am calling BS on that. I could contract a cold though. Oh, OK. Sure, sure. Well, President Trump was singing a little bit of a different tune during the West African Ebola outbreak of 2014. Here are some tweets from the former future president. The U.S. cannot allow Ebola, all caps. Ebola infected people back. People that go to faraway places to help out are great, but must suffer the consequences. OK. Yeah, I don't follow Okay. Yeah, I don't follow the logic in that one.

That's a rollercoaster ride. The U.S. must immediately stop all flights from Ebola-infected countries, or the plague will start and spread inside our borders. Act fast. Okay. So, wait a second here. If there were only four confirmed Ebola cases in the United States in 2014. And as of right now, there are five coronavirus cases in 2020. Bear with me here. Okay. I know what you're saying. More coronavirus cases than there were Ebola cases. I mean, yes, like add this to the massive pile of things that President Trump is a hypocrite about. But overall, both of those numbers are very small. And a much

bigger public health concern is unfolding right now. We're in the middle of a really nasty flu season. We're experiencing a huge outbreak of the flu. 15 million people have been infected, and more than 8,200 people have died so far, according to the CDC. So tell me if this comforts you, Gideon. You are much more likely to die from the flu than you are to get coronavirus. Why would something like that comfort me? You're replacing one disease that could potentially hurt or kill me with another one that is much more likely to hurt and kill me. The only thing

that I'm getting out of this is you're saying that I can cancel going to Iowa. I don't need to come into work anymore because I'm going to get the flu. No. Okay. What you need to do is just wash your hands, get your flu shot. Everybody should get their flu shot and quit whining about Iowa because Iowa is lovely. Ordinarily, when a news organization is in the news, it's not for a good reason. It could be that they mistakenly referred to Britney Spears as Briony Spear. That really happened. Or, you know, laundering false justifications for a generational catastrophic forever war. The two options.

Either you misspell Britney Spears' name or you plunge us into a generation of chaos. Sure. Equal stakes. But yesterday, The Guardian announced it would no longer accept advertising from fossil fuel extractive companies. They're the first major news organization to do so. So Gideon, how did they come to this decision? And what does that actually mean? Basically, they said that their own reporting was justification for the choice, that it had been apparent for so long in the stories that The Guardian was putting

in their own papers and website, that fossil fuel companies were actively preventing any sort of meaningful climate action, as we know from this kind of reporting, and that it became difficult for them to then maintain the fact that they were taking in that money from those very companies and reporting on all of the pernicious effects that they've had in that money from those very companies and reporting on all of the pernicious effects that they've had on the rest of the world. In practice, though, what it's actually going to mean is it'll apply to the Guardian websites and the apps and the print publications. So pretty holistic. Okay. So there's not going to be any more, what's all this then? Petrol is bloody great. That's my British accent. Yeah. When I'm thumbing through the British newspaper, The Guardian.

Yeah, there's not going to be a chimney sweep who jumps off the page while you're reading your British newspaper that you get to your house. Yeah, just a reassurance there for you and the rest of the listeners. But the company is acknowledging that in making this decision, there could be financial ramifications, obviously. And they said that part of the reason for that is that last year, 40% of the Guardian's revenue came from advertising, of which this would definitely be a part. And they're hoping that in order to offset that, they could attract new advertising partners who aren't, you know, Upton Sinclair oil baron types and are maybe trying to do something good.

And, you know, more reader support for their own reporting. And then, you know, maybe it'll level off a little bit. I mean, that's a good point. As a reader, I don't really like to read an article about how the world is on fire and then see next to it an advertisement for a company that sucks the blood out of the earth and then spits it back in my face in the form of poison. But just you know, no one else feels maybe it's just me. I'm not like the other

girls, but devil's advocate here. Isn't it kind of punk for a newspaper to take a bunch of money from an oil company and then write stories about how much they suck? No. Why not? The stakes are far too high for this galaxy brain post that you have, that you're conceiving right here on air. You should be ashamed of yourself. It does certainly seem like a start, what The Guardian is doing. Greenpeace called the move a, quote, promising sign. But they pointed out that at this juncture, there are more ad dollars and eyes that are on social media than an isolated website or publication like The Guardian. So what they're saying is that you need to have social media platforms taking a similar pledge like this. But to give you an idea of how much money these

fossil fuel companies actually are spending, according to Greenpeace as well, since the Paris Climate Agreement, the world's five largest publicly traded oil and gas majors have collectively spent more than a billion on misleading climate lobbying and branding activities. social media platforms. And even if those places are regulating what they think is political speech, it's not, they're not doing something that's specifically for fossil fuel companies, which is inherently political if you're telling people, hey, no, this is all good. And The Guardian also said, though, that this new policy is not going to apply to high carbon emitting industries like car manufacturing and travel. Again, when you talk to your British chimney sweep, he can point you to the direction of a lovely Chrysler or a Rolls Royce. And, you know, the reasoning for that is that that would just be too financially damaging. And then they get to a point where they are not able to actually make the news product they want

to make. Oh, well, such are the limitations in life under capitalism, comrade. Yes. Though The Guardian, even before this, has been reflecting and changing how they cover the climate emergency, right? Yeah. And it's interesting you chose that terminology. I didn't choose it. I read it off the page. I didn't choose it. You wrote it down. It's always a thing where it's like, what if the listeners knew? What if listeners knew how the sausage was made? I'm tired of lying to them. You wrote it down and I read it. So quit complimenting me.

Did that make your morning commute better? I hope so. That's what Aaron Ryan brings you. Yes, in all seriousness, climate emergency is derived from the Guardian making an executive choice to change their style guide in October using phrases like, quote, climate crisis or, quote, climate emergency, as opposed to climate of a polar bear that is very sad and distressing on melting glaciers, but rather actual imagery of the way that a mixed message, though, because on one hand, they're really cute, majestic animals, and it's sad that they're having trouble getting food. But on the other hand, polar bears naturally prey on people. So I don't want that polar bear to get me. Do you work at Exxon? Is your six hours of podcasting you doing the Exxon show and the BP show?

Yeah, the X Factor, it's called. And it's just me talking about how much I love Yeah, the X Factor, it's called. And it's just me talking about how much I love oil. But you know, it's good. Just all joking aside, it's obviously good that any institution would try to do something because something is more than nothing. And we've been doing nothing for a really long time. So Gideon, can you give us a sense of how the fossil fuel divestment movement is going? Well, for the people that have been at this for a long time, it definitely is gaining momentum. For instance, here's Bill McKibben, the famous American environmentalist and leader of the organization 350.org, talking about this very issue and how he wanted it to

gain traction seven years ago. These companies now have this industry has five times as much carbon in its reserves as the most conservative scientist on Earth says would be safe to burn. Once you know the numbers, there's no longer any sort of doubt about how this story comes out, unless we rewrite the script. If we follow their business plan, the planet tanks. That's why there's this upsurge, not only around divestment, but around things like the fight against the

Keystone Pipeline. You know, we're going back to Washington for the biggest climate rally probably ever in this country a week from Sunday on the Mall in D.C. It's coming up fast, and it's got to come up fast, this movement, because, unlike other problems we face, there's a time limit on this one. If we don't get it right soon, then we don't get it right at all. doing it out of the goodness of their heart. It's because, you know, they've been put in positions where people refuse to let them off the hook, and there is like a sustained pressure on it. As an example of the way that things have changed since McKibben was talking there and our present day, you know, the Rockefeller family recently announced that it was divesting its family

charities. The University of California system cut fossil fuel companies from its pension fund and endowment. And there are similar movements targeting Yale and Harvard at the moment. So I don't think that he or anyone else necessarily thinks, you know, things are over or far from it. But that's sort of a way to look at, you know, how the movement has changed even in the span of seven or eight years. And even on a smaller scale, I was just reading yesterday an article about how Nordstrom is about to start offering secondhand clothing for shoppers. They'll join Macy's, JCPenney, and Madewell and a bunch of other places because shoppers prefer the more eco-friendly option to buy clothing that has been gently worn rather

than purchasing new clothing. Hopefully other news outlets can follow The Guardian's lead on this, and we won't live in a future world that is dependent on modern oil barons. And now for some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. Headlines. Yesterday, Trump lawyer and friend-o-creeps Alan Dershowitz tried out a new approach to proving the president is innocent by arguing that it's okay to do something corrupt if you're trying to win a re-election. He said, quote,

Okay, galaxy brain. Wow. Yeah, you accuse me of galaxy brain, but that is an extremely galaxy. You guys are sipping from the same cauldron, ma'am. House manager Adam Schiff was not convinced by this, by this sort of argument of quote, when the president does it, it's not illegal. Also, yesterday, the White House issued a formal threat to former National Security Advisor John Bolton, man with a large mustache, a war walrus, if you will, to keep him from publishing his book, which, as we mentioned earlier this week, revealed that Trump did withhold aid from Ukraine. In a letter to Bolton's lawyer, the White House claimed that there was a significant amount of classified information in the book.

But, again, the big headline here is that, you know, there are people in the White House that are reading books. Or there is out there somewhere a version of John Bolton's book that is all pictures. Oh. I really want to read that book. That's the only version that I would buy. Yeah, I would totally buy a John Bolton picture book. Speaking of books, Flatiron Books, publishers of the controversial new novel American Dirt, announced that they'll be canceling the rest of its book tour, pointing to safety concerns. But a better reason that the book tour should be canceled is that the book was a bad idea. The book, which was written by Janine

Cummins, tells a fictional story about Mexican migration. Cummins, who is white, was criticized by readers and writers of color for using harmful stereotypes about Mexicans, fetishizing the pain of her characters, and oversimplifying a very real struggle for her own profit. Despite all this, Oprah announced earlier this week that she plans to discuss American dirt in her book club. This drew a response yesterday from a group of over 80 writers,

many of whom are people of color, asking Oprah to reconsider. The whole thing serves as a reminder of precisely how white the publishing industry currently is, and that there are some great Latinx authors that you could be reading this year instead. Like, for example, Valeria Luiselli, Fernanda Melchor, and Noé Alvarez. We get it. You read. Very, very cool. The right is getting better at comedy, and it's making liberals nervous. And by comedy, I mean posting decade old memes. And by nervous, I mean file copyright infringement lawsuits. It all started when Republican Iowa representative and sunburnt racist Steve King did a fundraising

post using the success kid meme. You definitely recognize this image. Unfortunately, I cannot show it to you the limitations of audio, but it shows a one-year-old boy on the beach staring at the camera and squeezing his fist with the intensity of Congressman John Delaney doing an ab roll. Good luck to you, sir, Mr. Delaney. When Success Kids' mom, Lainey Griner, found out about King's Post, she sued, calling for the removal of the image and a refund of the money it helped raise because, quote, bigotry is just the antithesis of what we want to be associated with this meme. I agree. I think memes should be fun and inclusive. The post has been deleted, but King has yet to respond to the lawsuit. He's probably busy trying to make crazy frog about white nationalism.

White nationalism already has its own crazy frog. There's no need for a second frog to join the ranks. Guys, when I hear Santa Cruz, I think Spirit Cruise. And that's because on Tuesday, the City Council of Santa Cruz, California voted to decriminalize psychoactive plants and fungi by making arrest for adult use or possession one of the city's lowest law enforcement priorities. I'm already on my way there with peanut butter sandwiches and a suitcase full of soft clothes. How did you know? I want to know how did you know this? I just know. Council members who support the law touted the

benefits of psychedelics for treating PTSD, addiction, and depression, and for fostering creativity and connection with nature. These council members must have run on a platform of being chill. Denver was the first U.S. city to decriminalize magic mushrooms last May, followed by Oakland, and there's now a bill in front of the Vermont state legislature that aims to decriminalize psychedelics statewide. The Santa Cruz law is well-timed because there's still a few weeks to take advantage of it while Cats is still in theaters. How did you know? Robo-trippin' with Rum Tum Tugger. And those are the headlines. Dr. Bronner wrote on his amazing soap, Like Me. What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe.

I'm Erin Ryan. I'm Gideon Resnick. And that's how we end up back where it all started. Tom Hooper's hit movie Cats, starring Britain's own James Corden. He's a chubby cat, isn't it? Oh, no. No. 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 Kshaka.