Barely Passing

is coming up on year one. On today's Woke Wednesday at three thirty pm Eastern on Instagram Live, I'm going to be providing what I believe is my report card for Joe Biden and this administration, And so I want to kick things off on today's Woke a f with that, with getting us all thinking about it's been a year, right, you know, at the beginning of the month, we acknowledged the year anniversary of the insurrection, the attempt to overthrow

our government, the recognition that it's still happening, that there is a slow moving coup that has been rolling across the United States probably since Donald Trump became President of the United States, but definitely hit a fever pitch in twenty twenty and it hasn't shown any signs of slowing.

And what is really interesting to me when I turned on the news after the long holiday weekend and am seeing headlines like White House changes messaging strategy or White House signals new pivot on messaging strategy, or year two, what will the agenda be? Because all of the previous things that this president has wanted to do outside of physical infrastructure has indeed failed. And so I posted on Twitter and if you don't follow me, you should at D two cents d E two c e nts. I'm

also thinking about changing that name. Let me know what you think about that, basically to my actual name. But you know so far, I put up this poll, right, and you know how I think about polls. But I like polling you all. I like polling my own audience because I know who I'm talking to. And basically, this administration is polling pretty fucking low in comparison to other presidents and in their first year. To be fair to this administration, everything that they're dealing with are things that

have never been dealt with by any president beforehand. All at the same time, now you can come into the presidency and there can be a lagging economy. You can come in and there can be you know, foreign adversaries and and threats abroad. You can come in and you know, we may be talking about education or healthcare, what have you. But to be fair, this administration came into an absolute

fucking shit show. Right. Not only were they coming in the midst where we were just becoming aware that there was a COVID nineteen vaccine, but that at the time, right that both Kamala Harris and Joe Biden were sworn in at that time. Just think about this for a minute. A year ago, four hundred thousand people had died of COVID.

A year later, that number has more than doubled. So if you came in to this new administration with the hopes that you were going to ride your mid term elections, your presidency on you being the adult in the room and being able to deal with COVID nineteen and roll out vaccines and get the country is shot in the

arm and all of those things. Well, if we're just looking at the death metrics, right, or if we're looking at the positivity rates, if we're looking at this administration's handling of any of those things, what grade would you give them, because I can tell you right now that

they're barely passing. Now, this is not for me to say that they should have been prepared for omicron, But here's the thing that they should have been fucking prepared for, which is had a message to the American people because Donald Trump and the Republicans were doing a bang up fucking job telling people not to wear a mask, telling them that the COVID nineteen virus was a hoax, telling them to drink bleach, telling them to take horse tranquil liarser,

it's telling them to drink their own urine. They came in understanding that the war that we are at is not necessarily just with the Republican cult party, right, but it is with their ability to share their cult messages and have people bide onto it right, and have even those that are supposed to be at the height at the peak of our intellectual prowess, like say, oh, I don't know, members of the Supreme Court parroting the same right wing extremist thoughts with regard to COVID nineteen, which

is now informing how they decide to throw out Joe Biden's mandates, and saying that certain agencies like OSHA right don't have the power to be able to institute these types of mandates that it would need to be an Act of Congress. But the fact is is that if you were to actually listening, listen to the questions that a Gorsitch or a Thomas are offering, they sound like they're on O N. They sound like they're coming from

Fox News. So it's almost laughable to see headlines now in the news about the White House pivoting their messaging when the only fucking thing that needed to matter with them coming into office was how do we get the right messagers? What is our message and how do we get that out on podcasts, on radio, on TV, word of mouth, on social media? What is the plan looking at and interrogating the way that the right wing has been able to capitalize right on their lies and have

that miseducation and misinformation spread like wildfire. What were the Biden administration's plans to disrupt that? Narrow? Because I haven't seen one. Now, you have seen organizations right like the

Lincoln Project. Because all of these projects and programs and fucking organizations are run usually by men, usually by white men, who continue to get caught literally and figuratively with their fucking pants down, or just not knowing how one should conduct themselves in a professional setting, So which goes to undermine the entire mission that Lincoln Project had been after and had actually captivated a lot of eyes around, which

was their messaging strategy. So to me, I think to myself, why is it that the White House that Democrats as a whole, whether it is the d n C right the Democratic National Committee, whether it is the d SCC, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, or the D Triple C, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Company. Why you have these institutions and these apparatus that are supposed to be building the pipeline of our candidates and the ones that are gathering

these messaging and talking points. Tell me again why it's so difficult to match what works and then use the power of these agencies and these offices to be able

to amplify it like this. It's these places that I find myself where I'm like, if you know that you have one major problem, and you're a one major problem has now contributed to more depths and more misinformation as it pertains to this fucking virus, Why wouldn't you figure out you have the power of the White House to gather all of the most important mouthpieces right in America, to gather them and figure out how are you getting

the word out? How can we partner with the TikTok's and the TikTok stars and not just to come in and say, get a shot in your arm and take a picture with the President. But I'm talking about consistent fucking messaging, right, Like, what is it that this White House should be learning and should have been learning right as they were coming into power and over the past

year that we have seen none of it done. So when I am thinking about this one major problem of messaging that is absolutely like the nail and the coffin to our democracy, I'm outdone by the laziness on the part of this administration to just think that putting a grown up or somebody that was perceived as a grown up in the room was going to be enough, That just exercising Donald tru from the White House was going to mean a pluses across the board. That's not what

has happened. And what I find really frustrating about government just in general is the fact that it is so huge makes it less nimble to be able to adapt to change. And when we are in a rapidly changing environment, right, both politically culturally as a society, When we are in this rapid environment, how effective can this dinosaur of an operation be in messaging to the people that are literally on their devices, on their computers, sitting down in front

of streaming services day in and day out. How do you infiltrate that? But there are people who have done so effectively, and yet you're not using those people to your advantage, right, You're not using industries to your advantage. You're not sitting down at least as far as we can see, because the messaging is fucking stagnant and stupid. If I hear one more fucking politician that is one hundred years old talk to me about, well, we'll just continue the fight, bitch, I don't want to just continue

your fight, right. I want new strategies, so I'm not just pushing a boulder up the fucking hill. I want new strategies and pivots and ideas about how we fight differently, how we fight dirtier, how we actually get to the heart of the heart of the thing, not just the no one's above the law, but we're actually not going to use the laws to their fullest right. We're actually not going to find the thoughtful ways in which to

make laws amenable to what we're dealing with. Now. You know, I listened to a cable news reporter on CNN say, well, it seems like voting rights is, you know, just dead in the water. So we're just going to move on from that. What's next for the Biden administration? And I'm saying to myself, what's next for the Biden administration? Nothing? You haven't been able to do, Dick with the one year that you had that was going to be outside of midterms and dealing with the pressures of that. You

had one year to grab America's attention. You had one year for them to understand the urgency of this moment as it pertains to holding onto our democracy right and how those things feed into us having public health and safety initiatives that keep us all well right, which feeds into your economy problems, which feeds into right every fucking thing else. It is the issue of siloed fucking thinking

and this hierarchical understanding of our crises. This is a problem of thought, right, of linear thought is this is the issue because you're not able to really look at multiple issues at one time and see how one is feeding into the next, feeding into the next, feeding into the next. No. Instead, the way that it's organized and the way that it is retold to us in the news is like, well, this is the top of the agenda. This is the middle of the agenda, this is the

bottom of the agenda. No, the agenda should be If I'm going to quote Joe Biden's campaign speech when he was running, when he was candidate, Joe Biden, the soul of America, Well, what the fuck does that look like? If that is the heading, Well, it looks like secure during our democracy. What does that look like? It looks like holding those that are responsible for thwarting our democracy, for trying to overturn an election. It looks like holding

those people responsible. And then it looks like taking those taking that narrative right, and the push through the Department of Justice, through the FBI, it looks like a purging right. It looks like also on the one hand, holding people criminally liable right for treason, for the conspiracy to overthrow the government, the seditious conspiracy right. It looks like that,

it looks like the criminal responsibility part. And then what are we doing policy wise in order to secure our democracy to our overarching goal of saving the soul of America. I am so frustrated with this administry, with Democrats and what is just laziness, right. I heard a White House official say, you know, when asked about the messaging, well, we're not you know, we we don't have the ability to go door to door. We can't go town to town.

And I'm thinking to myself, really, because that's exactly what Steve Bannon told his followers to do. He told them that these next fights are coming at the local and state level. So he told people to go run for your student board, he'd for your school board, to go run for city council, to go run for these open positions and and local races that nobody's paying attention to. But then all of a sudden, when you look up, you realize that your entire state is under the control

of like a neo Hitler Trumps. Figure, where is that messaging from Democrats telling people to get out on the new That the new fight, right is at your school board, that the new fight is at your city council, that it's at your it's at the board of operations, right of your community. Where is that messaging? This is why I say that I sometimes folks outside of the policies, loathe being a fucking Democrat because I hate losing. I

hate being a part of the loser party. I hate being a part of the party that can't manage to get it shipped together. I don't want to lambast our president, but what else am I supposed to do? Pretend that everything that they're doing is great. Pretend that Democrats have a fucking clue as to how angry their constituents are. One of the things that I tweeted earlier this week as well was imagine, imagine what our politics would look like if Democrats cared as much or feared their base

as much as Republicans do. And you know, so many people responded, and they're just like, well, the problem with the Democratic base is that the base is black, right, and black people have no place else to go. So they're not going to cater to the base. They're going to still continue to run after all of the Karens, right, all of the white suburban Karents that haven't voted with the Democratic Party since the nineteen fifties. But I am

so confused by that continued, failing, fucking strategy. How is it that you feel that it consistently undermining and ignoring your base? This administration would rather put fucking Maya Angela on a fucking quarter, right, you know, highlight Juneteenth as a federal fucking holiday, commemorate the murder of Emmett Till, but refuse to give you voting rights and refuse to pass any anti lynching lass. How the fuck is this symbolism and pageantry supposed to make us feel? Well, I'll

tell you what it makes me feel like. It makes me feel like a little fucking kid that you're trying to pacify with a bunch of fucking toys, right so that they don't realize that you're not actually providing them with shit, Like you're not giving them an education. They don't really have a house to live under, they don't have food on the table. But here are all of these plastic fucking toys that you'll get bored with in a little bit. But at the moment you're distracted by

the Black community doesn't need your fucking distractions. That's number one, and we are so hip to your hot shit that what it's going to take, in my humble opinion, is for people to just fucking walk away, to walk away from the Democratic Party. Let Republicans do what white people are going to do right, which is what they've been doing right since slavery. I told you this last week, what did I say? I said that you had twelve good years of reconstruction that then was matched by one

hundred years of Jim Crow in modern times. We had eight good years under the Obama administration that is now probably going to be matched by a hundred years of authoritarian and fascist regime, and that will be nobody else's

fucking fault but Democrats. And I'm laying it squarely on this shoulder, because you see people the Republican Party, these white fucking rabid racists are telling you out loud who the fuck they are and exactly what it is that they are doing, and you are doing nothing about it.

You are having closed door meetings with Joe Mansion and kursin Cinema instead of doing what the Republican Party would have done to their asses last year, which is stripped them of their fucking leadership and shut them the fuck up, right,

because that's what I would do. It is past time to fucking change the locks on the democratic chambers to Joe Mansion and Kursen Cinema and any other two bit fucking moderate democrat that wants to hide behind those two who are media horse at best, take away their power, reach out to all of the fucking news stations with

the same statement. At the same time, have the presser event that says we are no longer going to be dealing with Kursten Cinema or Joe Mansion because they have expressed that they are against our shared democratic values and our norms. Now, many of you right may say, well, then you're just going to put them in Republican hands. And I will ask you, how is that different than

what has been done? Right now? It is time that we air out our dirty laundry and our bad apples, because right now it is spoiling not just the bunch, but our entire democracy. And at some point in time you have to put a stake in the ground. This is our stake in the ground. We are done, and anyone else who objects to cohesive democratic values right and decide to speak out on such you too will be booted.

We are looking for people that are going to champion our causes, not just in rhetoric, but with their policies and with their votes. And those two have shown us time and time and that they are not with us. So we are announcing publicly we are no longer with them. Let the chips fall where they may, but at least the people that voted this party into power would actually feel as if they are fucking doing something with the bad apples that they continue to court. The niceties are done,

the rhetoric is over. The pageantry I could do without. If you're not going to deal with the problems that are in front of you, then you should not be trusted to deal with the potential problems that are in front of us right that are down the road. The midterms in twenty twenty two and how they are playing out right now leading up nine months away to November, are going to show us exactly where this country is going.

And all I have to say to you, dear friends, is I hope that your passports are up to date, right. I hope that you are being really thoughtful about your resources and about your safety networks and what those look like, and I do not say that glibly. I'm saying that seriously because again, this is what it looks like when Democrats have a slim margin of power, and it looks

really fucking dangerous to me. Coming up next is my conversation with our dear friend, doctor Jonathan Metzel to run us through the latest with the omicron variant and what we need to know about COVID nineteen now and moving forward. Friends, you know that when it is a Wednesday, we are happy to be joined by our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, to run through the latest with the COVID crisis. Jonathan,

I have to start out today and say this. I have been having so many conversations with different friends and family members, and there's just one thing that has popped up to me is that we no longer have as

a country a shared value in life. And I think that what you know, I ended up tweeting out like this long you know, long for me because I never really tweet threads, but this long thread on how disturbing it is to wake up to see our COVID numbers that are astronomical in comparison to other countries around the world, To wake up to the news that China has imposed new lockdown restrictions that are affecting about twenty million people in the country, which is about only one point five percent.

But there are fears about how that's going to impact the supply chain because third of our manufacturing goods come from China. You're already seeing our supply chain issues. But what struck me, Jonathan, is the fact that news, mainstream news right is covering the supply chain as a crisis, but not talking about why China is taking the measures that it did in twenty twenty to impose lockdown restrictions

to try and get a hold of Amicron. Now we know that the Olympics is next month, so we also understand that they have another motivated factor to not want to once again be ground zero for a world outbreak. But how is this sitting with you? Like, how is the latest of where we are honestly genuinely sitting with you. Well, there's a lot in that question, so I'll just say yes, I mean, yeah, it's a mess right now. It's a

mess right now. So I want to say one thing that just kind of hovers over all of this, which I was sorry, which is that before before oh Micron hit, before all this kind of stuff hit, we had a great plan for Delta, right, And so I just I mean, we've said it a bunch on this show, but the virus, the virus sets the narrative, right, and so if if I mean, of course it mutates, that's what viruses do.

But we had a great plan for Delta. We had vaccines that work, social distancing worked, masks worked, and so so much of what's happening now is because of the change in the virus. Oh Micron is just a completely different animal like and so we just can't control it. And before I answer about China, I'll say, look at a place like Israel, for example. Israel is a place that has been very aggressive, very active in vaccinating people

three or four times. And even in a place like Israel that is seemingly done everything right short total lockdown, they're seeing dramatically high numbers. Look at New Zealand. New Zealand had basically zero cases for a very long time, but the minute oh Micron hit, they just were like, man, we can't stop this thing. And now they're seeing record spread. Same thing with Australia. And so I think that in

a way, the question is we're not. We just obviously not yet don't have the kind of authoritarian structure that a place like China does. So I think that the comparable countries to the United States are places like Israel, Australia, New Zealand, and I think in those cases they're also seeing this dramatic spread. And so the problem with the United States isn't just the numbers, of course that's a

huge problem. It's also that this kind of chaos is then being used to destabilize our political system because people then are saying, you know, you see, the vaccines don't work, and Fauci's a liar and blah blah blah, all those kind of things. And so in a way that it's kind of a perfect storm of the virus against setting the narrative and then that being used to destabilize our country as being proof of some bigger kind of conspiracy

or something. And that really is the runaway train, the fact that the fact that again chaos is very beneficial for half the people in our country. You know, I want to pick up on what you just said, particularly around Israel, because while I have my many issues with Israel and how they've rolled out, and who they've rolled out their vaccine program too, and who is denied, which

is Palestinians versus israelis their latest study on the fourth vaccine. Right, So Israel has been our and we've talked about this before. We've been watching what they do as a you know, instead of actually driving it over here. Right, So they did the first they were the first to do the third booster shot. Now they have rolled out for a

partial part of their population a fourth vaccine shot. But what has been announced thus far is that the fourth vaccine is still not enough to stop Amicron in its tracks. And so you know, you you look at these at these countries who, in my humble opinion as it pertains to public health, have been instituting better guidelines and forethought in terms of how to keep the country safe. Whether it's whether it's driven because of capitalistic interests or not.

It seems that people who have Jonathan lesser numbers than we are are taking more aggressive steps. Can you speak to that? And like that? And to be and again this that is not being reported. What's being reported is the crisis in manufacturing jobs and this, that and the other thing, not the aggressive steps for public health and safety that these countries are taken. Yeah, I mean, like really honestly, the scary and terrifying part about this is

there's no answer, right. I mean with Delta again, we had we had an answer. Science beat Delta. Then the big O came along and we don't really have an answer. It's kind of like think about Caveman when the t Rex came into being and they were trying different things like do we put salt on our head and run around? Do we put ketchup on our head and run around? But they had no answer. The t rex ate them every time because they weren't the apex predator of the

planet anymore. And that's kind of what's happening here. Like we keep thinking, we keep trying to think. Our narrative goes over the virus and I think, you know, viral humility. I think it is super important here because there are more variations and mutations coming and so I don't know, I mean right now, honestly, I'll be honest, there's there's no solid answer except for you know, doing the best we can with the safety measures we can. I mean, part of the frustration on my part is that people

will say, oh my god, the vaccine doesn't work. Well, the vaccine does work. The vaccine works in that it lowers the rate of severe illness, which lowers the burden on the healthcare system. Masks lower the rate of severe illness, and so the healthcare system doesn't get hit with a tidal wave of patients. You're seeing places like Oklahoma right before we went on air this morning declared that ICEE

emergency Tennessee. The cases have gone up like seven. And so part of the story here isn't just like an individual story about like oh me and my body and my thing. It's also like, let's think about this as a system and what can we do to lessen the burden on the system so the system doesn't collapse. And Americans just don't think that way. And I think people in other countries have an easier time thinking about that. And I think really that's the main issue is I mean, again,

this Israel study. I'm very interested because people people got it, and we that's no surprise. I mean, you just walk around the street, zillion boosted people are all getting it. The question is did they get admitted to the hospital to lessen the severity of their illness. I think that's going to be the really important thing. The other very important point about that Israel study is that it's pre publication.

It hasn't been peer reviewed, it hasn't been looked at, and so it's it was like, I think, two hundred

and seventy people in a healthcare system. So I would I would hold off on, you know, I would hold off until we know a bit more, right, Yeah, But again the question is I think the bigger issue besides I mean, the bigger issue that's not being told nearly enough is that our healthcare system is about to fall apart, and they're we're running out of workers and people are exhausted, and we can't you know, we just our healthcare system is honestly near and collapse, and that is a catastrophe

waiting to happen. Yeah, Jonathan, I feel like, you know, and particularly you and I on this show, right because for the past two years, we've been dealing with something that you know, we're we're trying to understand in real time, right, Like, we're trying to understand stand and distill in real time what is happening. And when we say things like democracy is about to fall or the healthcare system is about to collapse. What is it that you think is being

missed in the delivery of that message for people to understand? Like, what are we not describing so that everyone has that oh shit moment like this is about to happen, Like when we say a hospital is about to collapse, a hospital system is about to collapse? Can you paint that picture? What are we missing? I think we're missing the what to do about it? I mean, I think for them, I mean, certainly, if you watch the Trump rally the other day, I mean there's a lot of wackadoodle going

on right now. M JFK Junior is going to rise from the dead and run on the Goop ticket and stuff like that. I mean, hell, a lot of it for him. But so But but the question is so I think I think the crazy is in people's face right now. I don't think there's much mystery about that to Santis is hiring basically the Gestapo to run the elections in Florida, Like it's it's you can't really miss it right now for most people. But I think there's also like a what the hell do I do about it?

Right there's so much anxiety and so I think the issue is not so much the diagnosis. I think the issue is what concrete steps, what exact steps can I do?

There was actually I thought a really interesting op ed in the New York Times this morning about how the Democrats are taking the Hispanic vote for granted in a particular way, and it was an interesting, interesting piece, but basically he said, you know, there's so much voter suppression and immigration and rallying crime, but you're not telling me

very concretely, what is your pro growth policy? What is concretely your what are concretely are you going to do beyond yelling about injustice and stuff like that, which there is to concretely make next steps for growth or something like that, as opposed to the GOP, who we don't like, but their stance is like we're keeping business open no matter what and all that kind of stuff. That makes sense to me. And so I think right now there's a lot of yelling about the issue the diagnosis, and

there's no shortage of stuff. I mean, just look at DeSantis. But I think I think people are frozen. That's my I mean, I've no evidence for this, but it's like, what concrete steps are we going to do to get out of this, and that's hard because the stakes are so high, the goalposts keep changing, the virus is so scary. So but but I think that's the issue. I don't

know what what's your sense about that. I'm curious, you know, it is I feel like we are a nation of deer is caught in the headlights, right, Like I feel like there is you know. And this is the thing. I had a friend who she was like, oh, you know, what are you doing this weekend? Right? And I was just like, well, I'm not gonna I'm not really doing

much these days, right. I'm back on a self imposed you know, lockdown right where I don't want to go out to eat inside of restaurants, and it's pretty cold in New York right now for me to even want to entertain eating outside at the myriad of places that you can go to to eat outside, even with heaters seventeen degrees over the weekend, right, I'm not doing that.

And her response was, it's really interesting because according to my timeline, COVID is over right, and so it's like in my little bubble universe that I've created for myself of safety, what makes me feel safe. Is what I'm recognizing is not the norm, right, Like it is more so the norm for people to be like, well, I'm out and I'm boosted, and if I get amicron, i

am not going to go into the hospital. Maybe I'll have a fever for a couple of days, and I'm willing to deal with that so that i can have a normal quote unquote normal life. And so for me, it's just like this, this sense is the question that I was going to open up our conversation, is Jonathan,

am I just still making much ado about nothing? Like are we the last of like the same minds that just need to bend to the will of the masses, that like this isn't a big deal and we just need to keep it pushing, and like it is what it is, because that's the narrative from the anchors on the news. It's the narrative that I see in the papers. It is like everywhere, It's everywhere in terms of it's not just the anti vaxers and the Trumpers, it's everywhere. And so I'm like, am I going to be the

last one hanging onto a K ninety five mask? Burrowed in my Brooklyn apartment, when the world is going to continue, when America is going to continue doing what America does, which is not really given a fuck. I mean, we talked last week on this show about how Scandinavian countries, a number of them, have declared COVID the number one chronic illness, the number one threat to their long term care facilities. And the reason they do that is because again,

COVID crosses the blood brain barrier. It gets in your brain, it gets in your heart. This version doesn't get in your lungs, but it gets in an awful lot of other places that you kind of you know, you want a little quality, sanctified airspace there. You don't you don't want other flanes flying into that airspace, but this virus is going in there. And so in a way, the threat of mild or moderate COVID isn't just the immediate

affection infection. It's that you're going to have vertigo or short you know, cardiovascular disease that makes it harder for you to do. I mean, we're seeing heart attacks, strokes, autoimmune disease, all these things go up, and so in a way, the long term effects of this are pretty significant still even from my quote unquote mild version of this.

And the other thing is there are a lot of treatments that might be helpful, like the Fiser pill, but they're not going to be really ready until next year. And so I mean, I'm with you in a way. I think you still should do everything you can to

not get this as much as possible. I've been you know, you can tell by my top shelf appliances here that I'm still in Brooklyn, but I'm flying to Nashville Monday morning, where the positivity rate is now over forty And so I'm but I'm going to double mask and I'm not talking to anybody. But again, like you know, I'm just gonna I'm going to do my best. But but I don't think that there's a winning argument of let's just

go get this and get it over with. That was the fantasy about this thing initially, But I think that's turning out to be completely not true. Yeah, And I think that you know, what what is making me really just you know, continue to be concerned is that I feel like the minority, right, I feel like you and I and you know, and folks that listen to this show that are kind of guided by what the recommendations that you offer, the recommendations that Fauci offers, not so

much the CDC because I really don't trust them. U. It's just it feels like that group continues to shrink. And yet the problem, Jonathan, the actual numbers right and like again, and so folks keep telling me, well, we're not counting the right things. And so this is another area that I want to address with you, is that you know, we're focusing on deaths and hospitalizations, but like we shouldn't be focusing on those things. So tell me, in your opinion, what are the metrics that we should

be focused on and frankly continue to be concerned about. Yeah. Again, like you know, the first thing that came out was oh, this thing is mild, just go get it and get over with. That was that was well before any data or information that we had. And now I think people who know are saying, man, do everything you can to not get this right. Um, don't use a cloth mask, use an end mask or a better mask. So I still think the safety measures are the same in a way.

The other scary parties. Again, our vaccines are just aren't working as well. There's going to be probably. I'm sure a new vaccine probably by next fall that will be more specific to this strain of COVID or a more kind of across the board COVID vaccine. So there's stuff kind of coming down the pike, but right now it just feels like a kind of crapshoot Russian Roulette kind

of deal. And a huge part of this story is that up until Delta, not only did we have vaccines that worked, but we also had monoclonal antibody treatments that worked, and they were and they were abundantly available, and it turned out that for the big o here, only this one little teeny monoclonal antibody treatment that was kind of relatively new and there's not very much of it in the system is the only kind that works against it.

And so we also, i mean, monoclone antibodies were super effective if you got COVID at limiting severe infection, and that's not available either. So it's a pretty dangerous time to just be kind of going to get it again. I have family members who have it. You can't help it. They're very careful, and it just ended up like this thing is so infectious that it's just hard to hard

to avoid it. But I would say that right now if you can avoid it, with the hospital system shut down and with the lack of anti viral treatment and monoclonal treatment, now is not a great time to get it. I mean, if you're going to get it, you know, wait six months. Like you know, I have friends here who at first one it was everybody was saying it was mild. We had this plan. We were like going to go to a strip club or lick the subway pole, or do something crazy to get you know, to get it,

just get it over with. And but that was a fantasy. That's actually not turning out to be the case. And again we've talked about this for two years. The main issue is this virus crosses the blood brain barrier and can live in your brain for the rest of your life. And so mild does not mean no long term. In fact, you know, there's in some ways a bigger risk of long term things. And so just for everybody out there, don't do what I was planning on doing, licking the

subway pole. Don't do that. Now, do everything you can still to not get it. Because even if you're gonna get it, even if it feels inevitable. I really do believe it'll be better to get it six months from now because there won't be the healthcare system overload and that. So, but again it's it's hard. You know, when you're when

you're when you're out there, it's hard. So the last question that I have for you today, Jonathan, is around UM high schoolers K through twelve, students that have been protesting right walkouts around the country, not just in Chicago, but in New York and other cities because they don't feel like they are being put into safe environments, right, the HVAC systems, not the schools, not having masks to

give out, or home testing. What do you think about right now with the ongoing fight in our nation's public schools, right not doing remote learning forcing kids who are generally, let's be clear, right in a lot of public school systems are black and brown kids, right, are low income kids, the ones that don't have the ability to just pull out of school and go to the Catholic school, go to the private school. What have you? What do you think about what we're putting our children up against right

now and and how that's playing out. It is such a hard issue. There was an article in The New York magazine the other day about how how like we created this divide between keeping schools open or shutting schools, and how disastrous that binary was in a particular way because it kind of created these two polarized positions and

neither one was completely right or even remotely right. And so really the answer to this is turning out in retrospect again, if we had if this I don't mean to sound like nostalgic for the good old days of Delta, but if our vaccines were yeah, the Delta vaccine worked, and so there was an easy answer for this until November of this year, and all of a sudden the issue got much more complicated. But I think the overall

issue is not about open versus closed schools. It's really what kind of infrastructure changes do we need to make to schools and hospitals and offices and all these buildings, because we're going to be dealing with this for the rest of our lives, really, and so airflow technology, spacing, all these kind of things like that's always going to be the case. And so we really had a chance to make structural changes to our infrastructure to any way

make and we've done this for other pandemics. That's the hard part is that like at other times, like when people figured out how a pathogen behaved, they changed condition patterns, they created space between buildings, they made streets wider, all these kind of things. Those are kind of the long standing lessons of pandemics. Your and and we didn't do that here in a particular way. And I don't think

it's like a Democrat versus Republican thing. I mean, Democrats had an infrastructure build that they also could have addressed this with, I think, and a bit much more forcefully and and much more directly. So it's it's a hard question, but it really turns out to be an infrastructure repression, believe it or not. And of course where it gets the most investment, Where did the most money go? All these kind of things. But I don't know, it feels

very circular. It's hard to I mean, you know, there's a chance, let me just say that we burn out of a micron and then the whole thing burns out, like there's it's not likely, but it's possible. So there's a chance that six weeks from now we're going to be having a very different conversation. But again, right now is the time even the world exhaust stead and you know, Trump's having rallies raising the dead and stuff like that.

Like feel things feel very bad right now, but there's a there's a not small chance that things could look a lot better in a couple of weeks if people just hang in there. And then there's also a chance that we're talking about a whole different variant. Yeah, and a couple of weeks as well, So you know, life is a toss up. Well, I mean, if if there's a new variant again, I hope it grows hair on

your head. I would be delighted, you know, give it a tender profile, Like let's have a good happy variant, you know, the chia pet variant or something, so the pet rock there. Yeah, yeah, let's do that, Jonathan, Doctor, Jonathan Metzel, as always, thank you so much for making the time to walk us through these precarious times. I can't express how much we appreciate your insight on a weekly Take care of everybody, stay safe. That is it

for me today. Friends on this woke f be sure to tune into my Instagram live at three thirty pm Eastern today Again, as always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power, Get woke and stay woke as fuck.