What A Day - Vaccine Nation With Dr. Abdul El-Sayed

Episode Date: October 12, 2020

Senate confirmation hearings begin today for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, Trump's Supreme Court nominee. The president is scheduled to return to the campaign trail today just over a week after being hospitalized with COVID-19, after his doctor released a memo saying he’s no longer contagious, but providing no other information. Daily new cases of COVID-19 in the US are creeping above 50,000, which is the highest since August. Our guest host for today—epidemiologist and former Detroit health commissioner Dr. Abdul El-Sayed—answers our questions on what’s to come this winter, the long-term effects of COVID-19, and how to fight “vaccine hesitancy."And in headlines: Nigeria’s government disbands a controversial police unit, Pakistan bans TikTok, and Jaime Harrison’s record-breaking fundraising against Senator Lindsey Graham.Show Links:America Dissected, hosted by Abdul El-Sayed https://crooked.com/podcast-series/america-dissected/

It's Monday, October 12th. I'm Gideon Resnick. And I'm Abdul El-Sayed, filling in for Akili Hughes. And this is What A Day, where we are celebrating Indigenous Peoples' Day in part by acknowledging that in New York, I am on the traditional territory of the Lenape people. And in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I'm on the land of the Anishinaabeg people, including Odawa, Ojibwe, and Budawatomi, and other tribes, including the Wyandot and Shawnee. Hell yeah. Abdullah, thank you so much for being on the show today. It is always a joy to have you here.

I am grateful to be here, although I have the impossible job of trying to fill in for the indomitable Akilah Hughes. So I'm going to do my best and y'all forgive me for not being either as smart or as funny or as genuine and kind as Akilah. I'll do my best. I think you got this. For those of you who do not know, though, Abdul is a physician, an epidemiologist, a progressive activist, and Detroit's former health commissioner. He also has a podcast with Crooked called America Dissected, which you should listen to. Honestly, if you're not, I don't know what you're doing. We've had him on the show before to talk about the pandemic, and he is back again today to take some more questions from us. So we're going to get to that in a moment and then some headlines.

But first, the latest. Today, President Trump is scheduled to return to the campaign trail just over a week after being hospitalized with COVID-19. A post on Twitter in which he claimed that he is now quote unquote immune got hit with a misinformation warning as he continues to downplay the virus, because of course, that's bullshit. This comes after the president's doctor, Sean Conley, released a memo on Saturday claiming that Trump is no longer contagious with limited information beyond that, as is the way with said doctor. As for Joe Biden, he'll be making his first general election stop in Ohio today, where he's set to talk about his plan for rebuilding the economy. And while all

that is happening, there's a lot of uncertainty between Congress and the White House about their plan for the economy. Over the weekend, Senate Republicans denounced the White House's most recent relief bill. This, of course, was a proposal that the White House had put forth to try to get negotiations back on track after Trump nixed them last week. Dexamethasone is a hell of a drug. Senate Republicans don't want to shell out money to people desperately in need in this country, but they are very eager to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Gideon, confirmation hearings begin today before the Senate Judiciary Committee. So what do we need to know? First of all, it's absolutely nuts that

this is happening, but I suppose it's happening on my default response to everything this year. But, you know, these hearings are beginning just three weeks before Election Day, with millions of votes already cast. And the prevailing public opinion is that this should not be happening right now. There are already two Republican members of the Judiciary Committee, Senators Tom Tillis and Mike Lee, who tested positive for COVID-19 following that Barrett ceremony at the White House, which has been referred to as a super spreader event. Graham, Tillis, and another member of the committee, Joni Ernst, are all up for reelection in relatively close, if not toss-up races. So I think we can kind of anticipate that they're going to try to use these proceedings

to their benefit. I think we're going to see a lot of ads cut from whatever it is they end up saying. And then Senator Harris, the VP on the Democratic ticket, is also on the committee and was among Democrats who voiced concern that the hearings could just spread the virus even more. Apparently, there are going to be some precautions

taken in the room, and senators are allowed to attend remotely. We're expecting opening statements today and then Coney Barrett answering questions beginning on Tuesday. A bunch of news outlets got the text of Barrett's opening statement. What did she have to say? Yeah, so one of the quotes that was going around from her statement was, quote, courts are not designed to solve every problem or right every wrong in our public life. The policy decisions and value judgments of government must be made by the political branches elected by and accountable to the people. The way that was

being read is that it's getting at this conservative trope that liberal judges are activists and make the law based on their own policy preferences. And the Democrats who are on the committee are likely to focus on a couple of things here. They want to ask Coney Barrett questions about the November 10th case on the Affordable Care Act, of course. I assume we're also going to hear questions about her hypothetically being involved in various cases related to the presidential election as justice on the court. And then, of course, there is Roe v. Wade. Much has been written about Coney Barrett's personal views, but over the weekend, there was also a CNN report detailing how she had initially not disclosed two separate talks that she gave, which were hosted by anti-abortion

student groups when filling out paperwork submitted to the Senate. According to reports as well, she also didn't initially disclose her participation in a 2006 newspaper ad calling for the end of Roe v. Wade's, quote, barbaric legacy. Obviously, there will be questions there. So we'll be monitoring these hearings in the days ahead. But Abdul, since we have this great opportunity to talk and lean on your expertise, let's shift gears here to the pandemic. There is, of course, plenty of news there. The biggest top line is that we're now seeing daily cases in the U.S. creep above 50,000,

and that's the highest since August. So to start there, how concerning is this new uptick going into the winter? I got to tell you, it is really concerning, considering epidemiologists have been predicting an increase in the fall and winter months for a while now. And that's the same trend we saw with the last major pandemic in 1918. In fact, a new prediction model is out from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. They're a group known for their forecasting of this pandemic. And they're forecasting nearly 400,000 deaths by February 1st. And most of this, of course, is being driven by the fact that it's just getting colder and

activities are moving indoors where we know the risk of transmission is substantially higher, not to mention the fact that schools and university openings have led to a number of outbreaks. This is a real concern. And I think people have to take what we're seeing very, very seriously, because this is affecting communities all over the country. Right. One of the things that we do know, I guess, that is sort of the slight upshot of, you know, the progression of time is that there are treatments that people are like a little bit more familiar with, you know, so far than we were saying in March. President Trump has been calling the Regeneron antibody treatment

he took a, quote, cure for COVID-19, saying he's going to make it freely available to Americans. I think people agree that that terminology doesn't make sense. The CEO, though, of Regeneron says its supplies would be limited even if the company was able to get an emergency authorization from the FDA. From what we know so far, how does the treatment work and what does the science say about its actual efficacy? Yeah, that's right. Well, President Trump is not very good at science. He was, in fact, on three different treatments. Two of them have already gotten their emergency use authorizations from the FDA. That includes dexamethasone, which is a corticosteroid designed to knock back your immune system. One of the ways that this disease makes you sick is actually revs up your immune system. And that itself can make you

very ill. And so it knocks back the immune system a little bit so you don't get that overpowering response. And then the other one is remdesivir, which is an antiviral. It attacks the virus itself. It was actually developed for Ebola. It wasn't all that effective for Ebola, but we retried it for COVID. In fact, it is very effective against the coronavirus. And then he was on a third treatment, which is this experimental monoclonal antibody cocktail. And so just to think about what an antibody is, your body makes antibodies. They're sort of docking mechanisms that help your immune cells find the virus to target

it and destroy it. And so you could imagine that usually your body makes them, but if we made them synthetically and you were able to have them then in your blood, they'd be doing exactly the same thing as it were that your naturally occurring antibodies would do. And so there's a lot of theoretical reason to believe that this will be safe and effective, but then there's also a lot of reason that we just wait for the science because sometimes you don't know what the side effects of a particular medication might be. And you've just got to wait for the data.

And that's kind of been one of Donald Trump's weaknesses. He can't really identify the fact that in science, we really have to be able to isolate a treatment. And also, you just got to wait for the data to come out. But it's great. I hope that this promising treatment is, in fact, safe and effective. But we've just got to wait for the evidence on this because, well, science. And the interesting thing, too, is when he's been talking about this,

it's also sort of like a tacit acknowledgement from him. It seems at some turns, I don't know if he's been saying this differently in interviews more recently, that that is the replacement for a vaccine before the election day, potentially. You know, some maybe modicum of acknowledgement there that he can't 100 percent force that through. But as time goes on and we maybe do get closer to a vaccine, there's also a trust issue that's emerging and this so-called vaccine hesitancy. I think it comes from a lot of different places. It definitely has something to do with the fact that, you know, like you're saying, we don't have a president that is trusted on the issue of science.

But how do public health experts, agencies, leaders, et cetera, deal with this when the time comes? Yeah. Well, to your point, Gideon, if you just look at the data here, Pew Research did a poll back in May, and that showed that about 72% of Americans said they'd take a vaccine if it were available today. Fast forward to September, that's fallen to only 51%. And the reason that this is so important is for the vaccine to have a population level effect to actually knock back the pandemic, allowing us all to go back to our lives without

social distancing, which of course sucks, we need probably 70 to 90% of people to be immune, meaning to take the vaccine. And if folks are worried about this vaccine and don't take it, we got to remember there's a difference between a vaccine and a vaccination, right? It doesn't become a vaccination until you put it in your arm. And if only half of people are willing to put it in their arm, that really is a problem. And that largely is because another poll by Staten Harris

showed that 78% of Americans, 78%, four in five, worry that the vaccine process is being driven more by politics than science. So every time Donald Trump opens his ascientific mouth, right? People listen to what he says and they're like, yeah, that's not science. And I'm not willing to take a vaccine unless I know that it's it's it's it's certified by science. And so what we really need to do is stop allowing this politicization. It's the most important thing we can do is make sure that we are working with folks on the ground, trusted voices on the ground, to talk them through what this vaccine is, how it works,

and all of the evidence when, in fact, it comes out about safety and efficacy. Because there is a really troubling history in our country, particularly among Black folk in our country, of the biomedical establishment mistreating local communities and testing things on local communities. And this wouldn't be that. And it's really important, though, that there is clear communication, a buy-in, and a respect for that history and an understanding of why folks may be so worried about a new vaccine and the consequences of that. And so that kind of buy-in and engagement on the ground, I think, is going to be so important to building up trust in the vaccination and allowing vaccines to turn into vaccinations. So we're talking about, you know, getting through the winter, we're talking about

treatments and vaccines on the horizon. How far away are we from the potential end of this? I think that's a question that everybody has, and it's a difficult one to answer. So I'm posing it to you a smarter person than me, like, where would you say we are in terms of getting to that end point? I wish I was smart enough to be able to tell you an exact day. But that exact day is June 23rd. No, I'm just kidding. Look, here are a couple of things I'm looking for. Number one, when do we have a safe and effective vaccine? Number two, what is the rollout strategy for that vaccine to turn it into vaccinations as we talked about? Number three, what happens in November? And do we have competent leadership that is able to do the things that we can do in the

absence of a safe and effective vaccine to actually knock back the transmission. Because, of course, we've all been waiting for a vaccine because all the other stuff that really could have worked, that has worked in a whole bunch of other countries, our country's basically given up on doing. And so if we get to November and we have an election that delivers competent leadership, God willing, then you can imagine, A, an effective rollout of this vaccine that allows it to get to where it needs to go quickly. And then two, investments in things like testing and contact tracing at scale that help to bring down transmission in the interim while we're rolling out that vaccine. So to me, I think if those things go well, that means you all need

to get out there and vote on November 3rd. If those things go well, then my hope is by quarter one of the end of quarter one of next year that we're really looking at opening things back up in a real way without having to potentially shut them down. And by the end of quarter two, if we get enough vaccine distributed, that we may really be looking at normal. Now, I know that sounds like a long time from now. But you know, at this point, we're almost into to Halloween. And once you hit Halloween, it's basically Christmas. And once you hit Christmas, basically the next year. So you know, we're almost there. I think this is hopeful and a good note to end on. And I look forward to

going to a concert next summer. I'm going to tell them that you said it was okay. All right. You let them know. I may or may not come with you. Sounds good. Yeah, we'll see how it goes. It is Monday, WOD Squad, and for today's temp check, we are talking about another pandemic sports achievement.

Rafael Nadal won the French Open this weekend, earning him his 20th Grand Slam title and tying him with Roger Federer for the record in men's singles. Nadal beat Novak Djokovic to win, and this was a much better way for Djokovic to lose than by accidentally hitting a ref with the ball, which is what happened in his last tournament. So Abdul, speaking of pandemic sports, which ones have you been watching and enjoying? Well, Gideon, I would tell you my Michigan football Wolverines will take the field later on this month. On the one hand, I am super excited to be watching Michigan football this fall. On the other hand, I am an epidemiologist and realize that this is a really dumb idea.

And I don't know why we're doing it. So I will be watching with one eye open, rooting for Michigan. And then part of me both cursing myself and the fact that we're actually playing football in the middle of a pandemic. I think that that's a totally fair and reasonable thing to do. And I think with every guilty pleasure, especially sports having to take place in a pandemic and the stops and starts and the testing and all this stuff, we can't feel completely good about it. But you got to have some amount of normality week to week i i agree with that and like you know at some point right it's like there is uh if football becomes a guilty pleasure for me it's not like it wasn't already because you know concussions um so gideon how about you right uh how about you what do you

uh what are you enjoying watching the most so So I have seen an unhealthy amount of NBA basketball. And I will say the NBA has done a better job in terms of the whole testing strategy than you could argue the federal government. You could definitely argue NFL football right now. But I have the same guilt attached to it every time, which is like even beyond the COVID stuff, it seems like people are sort of unhappy to be doing it. They're kind of isolated. Some of the guys are talking about feeling depressed during the process. And I'm sitting here just like having the time of my life because sports are back. But that's been a lot of fun.

And, you know, it's sad that it's coming to an end very soon, if not already by the time this episode is out. But that's been it. I probably will watch some football as a replacement and feel, you know, equivalent levels of guilt, if not higher levels of guilt soon. I mean, it's not football unless you feel bad about yourself watching it. Exactly. It's the American experience. That's what it's all about.

That's what they say Sundays are for. And just like that, we have checked our temps. Stay safe. We will be back after some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. Sunday that the special anti-robbery squad, also known as SARS, has immediately been dissolved. SARS was made in the 90s as an effort to combat violent crime, but many have accused the unit of abusing its powers. The latest decision comes after a week of nationwide protests against police brutality that were sparked by graphic videos of police violence shared online.

More recent videos showed police violently cracking down on demonstrators even on the day SARS was disbanded. Activists say more needs to be done to address police violence, especially considering that officers in SARS were just transferred to other units, and a new police unit will be created to replace it. Considering the fact that we're suffering a SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, it's good to know that someone is both beating SARS and taking on police brutality at the same time. That's right. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, they banned TikTok over the weekend, joining the list of countries that have taken a hard That's right. only blocking two. Some critics say the government's decision could be politically motivated, especially considering the surge in political content featuring teens criticizing President Imran Khan and his handling of the pandemic. TikTok's popularity in Pakistan has soared

during the pandemic, with over 20 million active users per month. For now, the government says it is open to talks with the company to create a moderation system they prefer. Let the teens have their fun. This is I'm against teen bashing as a policy. Anyway, we're going to get the money out of politics. But first, we're going to give it all to Jamie Harrison. He raised a record $57 million last quarter in the Senate race against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina. And before this year, the highest one quarter fundraising total for a Senate candidate was $38 million for Beto O'Rourke. Harrison and other Democratic challengers have amassed huge fundraising hauls over the past few weeks, especially as the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg galvanized liberal voters. Harrison is now neck and neck with Graham in recent polls,

meaning there's a real chance Graham will be able to leave politics and pursue his calling of sitting outside in a white suit and spending the rest of his life dabbing at his forehead. Harrison and Graham were scheduled to debate last Friday, but the format was switched to individual interviews with journalists after Graham refused to take a COVID test, which is the only surefire way to not get a positive result on a COVID test. I did hear that Jamie Harrison took his COVID test on TikTok in Pakistan. Oh, there it is. There's a new mall store many are calling the Spirit Halloween of PPE.

That store is COVID-19 Essentials, and it has eight locations, which sell masks, hand sanitizer, and small metal hooks you can use to open doors. The COVID-19 Essentials kiosks are doing important work, so it's good to know they're being rewarded. Apparently, they charge $130 for a mask that has an N95 filter and a battery-powered fan, which would be the going recommendation if the CDC was run by Bell's dad from Beauty and the Beast. FYI, a fan in your mask completely defeats the purpose.

The store also sells masks with, quote, mask chains, described here by a franchise owner and a happy customer. It keeps right here on your neck, and it's also a fashion statement. I wish I would have come up with it. Yes, we love and respect the vaccine scientists, but where were they when this store invented mask chains? The COVID-19 essential store near Denver is nonpartisan, but the owners say their Trump masks sell faster than Biden masks, which is one poll I'm choosing to ignore. Anyway, leave it to the late stage capitalism to figure out how to profiteer off a pandemic. They are always going to.

That's the constant. And those are the headlines. Quick announcement before we go. Vote Save America just launched a new ballot tool to help you get to know what's on your ballot aside from just the presidential election. Go to votesaveamerica.com slash ballot and you can figure out how you want to vote on judges, prosecutors, legislators, ballot initiatives, and more. Again, that website is votesaveamerica.com

slash ballot. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, avoid the fan mask, my friends, and tell your friends to listen. And if you are into reading and not just Jamie Harrison's fundraising numbers like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Abdul El-Sayed. I'm Gideon Resnick. And a big shout out to Bell's dad.

He wishes we could have done it in unison, but he understands. He's a forgiving father. But you know, he's got the best mask bling there is. He's got the mask chain, mask rings. Mask fan. Mask fan. He's showing out. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media.

It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tan is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein, and our executive producers are Katie Long, Akilah Hughes, and me. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. But like actually, to be honest, the Beast is the one who's like Beast is the best at social distancing, to be fair. He like lives alone in the house. He's been social distancing since before it was cool.