 Good morning. It's June 23rd, 2021. It's Wednesday. It's 11 o'clock. Can mean only one thing. Time for What Now, America? I'm Tim Apachele, your host. The title of today's show is COVID Delta Variant May Hit Red States Hard. Right now, we're looking at a variant called the Delta Variant. It is 60 percent more transmissible than the initial COVID-19. It's said that if you have two shots of either Moderna or Pfizer, that you're 88 to 90 percent protected from this Delta Variant. If you're one shot in, you're only 49 percent effectively protected. Right now, the cases in the United States is about 20 percent of this Delta Variant, and it is described that it's COVID on steroids. It's a lot more potent. It's a lot more deadlier. For whatever reason, it's now affecting the 35-year-old population down to the younger population. It's not just an old folks variant. It's hitting everybody and certainly those that are younger. I'd like to introduce our guests. Today, we have Jay Fidel and Stephanie Dalton. Thank you for joining us on What Now, America? Yeah. Nice to see you, Tim. Good to see you too. Jay, before I go to a question here, I want to read something Dr. Fauci said yesterday, and he was coded to say, every death from COVID-19 is avoidable, and it's a tragedy when it happens. It is on us to get those who are hesitant about getting a vaccine because they want more information, the information they need to make the decision. Unfortunately, however, there are some who continue to pollute the space with nonsense, pushing people in opposite direction. Let me get your reaction to that quote, and then I have a follow-up on that. I've come to feel that hesitancy, at least in most cases, is a euphemism. I don't know why we use that term for people who have politicized it and who listened to the misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies that are being disseminated to them about the vaccine. It's a matter of life and death, and it's their lives and their deaths. I mean, could that be more persuasive? Yet, it's out of Jonestown, it's out of a suicidal wish, quite remarkable, but they're still quote, hesitant about saving their own lives. We have certain parts of the country which are demographically red states and Trump states and base states, and states in which this has been politicized to most of the populations. Quite remarkable that people, I don't know what's in their minds. I don't know why they come to a conclusion that puts their lives at risk. Well, let me interrupt you right there, Jay. Is Dr. Fauci doing us a disservice by taking the high road that say that those who have not been vaccinated are hesitant about information, whereas in the truth of the matter, in a lot of red states, they're not hesitant at all. They've made up their minds, and that mind is I'm not taking the vaccine because either I believe in Donald Trump and what he wants me to do, or it's a conspiracy to take this vaccine. Well, I've come to this conclusion over the past few weeks, that the government is never going to be inclined to create a public panic, and the government is gonna be careful about saying that we're in a surge that will kill thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people. It's just not gonna do that. So it's very soft, it's very euphemistic, including Tony Fauci, and I understand that, but we here, us guys, we should understand that the government doesn't wanna create a panic, and it's therefore gonna soften its message, and I think that is the reality. You know, right now I'm traveling in the Northeast, I'm in Rhode Island right now, and you wouldn't know that there was a pandemic. There are no masks anywhere in stores and restaurants, indoors, there's none, and maybe that's because the Northeast states, particularly Vermont, I believe it is, 85 to 90% vaccinated. So the percentage of the Northeast states is well above 60, broaching 70%, that President Biden was looking for by July 4th. Now, compare that to some of the red states where they're well below 35%. And so Dr. Fauci just said today that 300 people are dying each day right now, according to John Hopkins. And that number has to go up. The more of these, the Delta variant becomes part of the commonplace replacement for COVID-19. That number has to go up by definition. I mean- Let me add another thought before you go to Stephanie and that is this, the government is also telling us, as you mentioned in some detail, that if you've had a couple of shots with Pfizer or Moderna, you're pretty well protected. But we're only out of the box for most people by what, three months or four months max. And what kind of database do we have? Well, have we had the opportunity to examine how this works? Delta is only in the United States, it's only a month old, maybe less. So the bottom line is we have no experience factor on which to make the conclusion that most people who have had two shots are protected. I'm not sure that's true. I will know a lot more about it as we go on for a few months. But right now, what you have to do is the math and you realize that that cannot be necessarily the case. Okay, well, you're right, Jay. We don't know everything, but there is a sum to more argument and not always a valid form of argument, but in Florida, there were a cluster of people infected by the Delta variant. And two individuals were killed, four are in the hospital, Sirius in ICU's, but there were two employees of this group that were fully vaccinated with Pfizer and they weren't affected at all, yet they were in the same office airspace. So I'm not gonna extrapolate this situation to other situations that may or may not involve the Delta variant, but it's hopeful that a two dose Pfizer or Moderna shot is actually will blunt the harmful effects of this Delta variant. No, it's a gradient. You know what I mean? We don't know exactly what the degree is. Maybe yes, maybe somewhere in the middle. And I just, I don't think we know yet. I wouldn't take the, you know, last night my wife and I went out to dinner. We haven't done that a lot and we wore masks most of the time. It was sloppy trying to eat through the mask, but hey, we weren't that hungry anyway. But what about you, Stephanie? How do you feel? I just raised a scary prospect, Tim. I heard you say, I mean, those people are in terrible trouble. And we all are, if it's possible, that we're gonna find out there's a degree of us that are still vulnerable, even though we have our shots and have followed the directions. So we'll have to wait and see on that. But I think to the vulnerability of these states with these low levels of vaccination is very frightening because this could really grab hold of those people and take them where they don't wanna go and get their healthcare systems in trouble. And I have also heard that there's great concern for those states as they are tending to be rural in the South and that they are also very limited for healthcare. So there are very few healthcare facilities throughout those states anyway for anything. So the whole notion is, I mean, they're not running in there when they've got the flu or a cold or some asthma or something like that, they're not used to having access to medical facilities and therefore they're not getting the guidance and they're not hearing the caring concern for the population and being given the advice that this is something that's very important to do. And that's also because of their politics. I mean, they go back to the Obamacare and how many of these states didn't take the expansion of Medicare and still some are fighting over that, that they're not gonna take it even though the residents are pleading to take it because it'll make a such a big difference in the numbers of people who can afford to have healthcare from that. So there is. Stephanie, your answer really highlights kind of a question that's just come in from a viewer but your answer highlights the fact that because we have such political polarization that maybe the federal government has backed off on enforcement or trying to work closer with states to say we need to be more stringent about trying to contain this variant or the original COVID-19, which of course was never done under Donald Trump's administration. But because of the political polarization there's a hesitancy to do so. So I lead to the question from one of our viewers and we appreciate this viewer's comment here is the Philippines president threatens to arrest those who refuse the vaccine. Will America have to resort to these same drastic measures? Well, we have missed the boat on building that unity, that unifying intention, that broad community understanding that we're all in this together. We never got that boat. The train left the station long before there was any building of that consideration for us all together helping each other out. It's been exactly what you say polarized in the opposite. So now we also have Mitch McConnell coming up and saying, well, no, he's not voting for any federal drastic requirement for everybody to lock step and go fascist. And so he's bringing up again that we don't want that federal intervention, don't want anything that's gonna tell everybody to do it the same way because there's absolutely no values being built. And we evidently have no norms left from the days when we did act out as a country together like after 9-11. Everybody was a part of that recovery and everybody was affected by it. So it's very worrisome to see that because in addition to the poverty issues and then the lack of medical care facilities, much less support and assistance for people in those states, we have somebody that just blasted any kind of notion that we're all in this together. We all care about all Americans. We want all Americans to get through this and we wanna get rid of the bug. So we're just off on this other crazy polarized route that isn't gonna do anybody any good. And so we have the option to do anything federally. I really don't think it will. Whether we care about them or not, they're gonna have an inordinate number of deaths in those states. But it's worse, you can travel from one of those states to another state. And it's not screening really adequate. We are not requiring the vaccines. I mean, sometimes you wish you were the Philippines. But here's one thing that I think is worth discussing. We know as a medical fact that how do these variants come about? They come about when you have a large number of cases. The more is probably a formula out there somewhere in science land. The more cases you have, the higher the probability of another variant, a variant that's worse than the Delta variant. Okay, and those red states where nobody's getting vaccinated, nobody's requiring or even encouraging people to get vaccinated, those states are a hotbed for another variant. That will be worse. So I think it's not just them, they wanna kill themselves fine, but it's all of us. We're all affected by the lowest common denominator, so to speak. Jay, what leverage does the federal government have against those either state governments or city governments that flat out refuse to do anything about either the original COVID or now the Delta virus? Or as you suggest, maybe a variant that's even gonna be worse than the Delta variant. What leverage does the federal government really have to say, hey, it's not just, it's he perverse unum from one many. You are not an island unto yourself. You're part of the 50 states of the United States and you are fellow citizens, whether they know it or not, are infecting other citizens. Well, to go where Duterte has gone and arrest people, make it criminal, we're not there yet. What I mean is we haven't done the interim possibilities and there are interim possibilities. For example, if you can't prove that you've had a vaccination, first of all, vaccination passports, I don't know why anybody would oppose that. And secondly, if you can take a plane, that's federally regulated. You can't take a plane hypothetically without having a vaccination. You wanna get federal funding, you wanna appear for federal benefits, you wanna collect your social security, whatever it is, a million things. The federal government is all over our lives. They regulate everything in every state. It is so easy for them to say, look, we're not giving you that benefit. We're not gonna allow you to have what you had before unless you prove up the passport or some good proof that you've been vaccinated. You have to go to jail, not to arrest anybody, don't forget to a street scene about it. What you have to do is put a lock on benefits that were previously available. This is easy. I don't actually know why the administration is not tightening the noose on this. Well, that's the question. I mean, let's hypothetically go down that road. Unfortunately that we go back to the fourth wave where it's not 300 people a day dying from COVID. It's now back up in the thousands. Would it be prudent for the federal government to say a vaccination passport now is required, whether you feel your hippo rights are being violated or not, or whether your personal freedoms are being trampled upon or not? We're trying to stamp out a pandemic and you're not helping. Well, I just wanted to jump in because I was very interested in this when we first, as Hawaii, started to close our gates. And of course the question is, well, why can't we close them completely? Well, just like Alaska and other states, and Alaska is most comparable because they actually could close their border. But that is not allowed by the constitution because we have interstate commerce. So the reference Jay made before about how you can leave a state and go to another state with all of your infection, there's nothing to stop you from doing that. And the federal government can't do that because we must be able to pass across and through these United States. So that's in the law. And then now this meme or this diatribe about fascism and doing anything by the federal government is an act of control over everybody that is not to be tolerated is then getting in the way of making this, the, that's an argument for states rights to do these things, but states are not islands on their own. And that there just isn't a recognition of how this is all supposed to work together, which we've done for hundreds of years. It was an intention of the mayor. Let me go to an argument that those who refuse to get vaccinated use and use often. And that is a lot of drugs that the FDA approves and studied for five years or 10 years, they allowed these drugs to go on the market and lo and behold, a number of them, particularly like blood thinners and all sorts of medicines turned out to be harmful versus the intended benefit that they were supposed to provide to the marketplace. So they have to take them off the market. And so take that logic and now they're saying, well, how long did you really study COVID and how much did the FDA really put in time was less than one year. And you're there expecting the entire population of the United States to be vaccinated. And do we really know the long-term effects of it? So they use that as one of the reasons why they don't want to get it. And then we have news stories like today, just before this show it was announced that the FDA is now putting out a new warning that there might be an unexpected inflammation to particularly in teens of the heart of the cardio system. And that for whatever reason, Pfizer and Moderna may now have this new warning that tasks to it. So what I'm getting at is we have this initial hesitancy or belief that the FDA doesn't really know what they approved, but yet we're all required to take it. And now see, we told you, there's a new warning coming up. How do you combat that kind of argument and do they have a point at all? They may have a point where a small number of people, I mean, there are side effects. I don't think any of them are really serious. And by the way, just as there was an article about the inflammation, there was also an article about black fungus. I don't know if you saw that. This is a COVID effect. And if you have COVID, you stand the chance of developing black fungus on your eyes and that will make you blind. So, it's a matter of weighing and balancing, but I think the numbers, and of course, as Stephanie says, it's the greater good we care about. We wanna save lives. We don't wanna see 300 or 600 or 1,000 people die every day. They've gotta get on board. And so, interesting, I go for a regular medical appointment, and I go to one of my doctor's offices and before I walk in, at least two people are taking my temperature and asking me if I've been anywhere. Every day happens, everywhere you go. Even in that restaurant last night, everywhere. Suppose I said, well, actually I have a little bit of a headache. I feel like I have a fever and I just came back from the UK, for example. And I think I might have COVID. I suppose I said that. Well, I wouldn't get in the restaurant, that's for sure. But would I get in to see my doctor? Probably not. Would I get in to have any medical care if I had that interaction with the people who stand at the gate and take my temperature? Probably not. So what you have is this kind of de facto thing. It's imperfect because there are other symptoms that could be identified. But if I had to show that I've been vaccinated in order to have other medical care, if I had to show that I wasn't dangerous to do this, that and the other thing, that would be a de facto way of preventing the spread. And I would suffer. I couldn't have these benefits. So I'm adding to what I said before about the federal government, putting guardrails on benefits. Every business can have that benefit. Every organization of any kind can deny you entry. I think a lot of them are afraid. And if I was an employer and somebody said, well, I'm hesitant about taking the vaccine, I would say there's the door. You can't, we can't have you here because you're endangering the rest of us. Sorry. What do you say about those state governments? And I'm thinking of Florida, DeSantis is gonna run for president of the United States. It's all but in the stars. And he's making a political gesture to say, we don't need to do these things that the federal government wants us to do. We know better for what's good for our population. And that must be damn, we don't care. So what do you do about governors like DeSantis of Florida who actually is working against trying to spread this virus versus trying to prevent it? The history books will judge him going forward, but the question is right now. I'm sure your question is right now. And the answer is that's why we have a federal government to deal with emergencies like this. And although Stephanie says it may be a violation of the constitution to stop people from traveling across state lines and various other things. I mean, the supremacists and the Republicans claim that it's a violation of their constitutional rights to deny the entry and require them to have a vaccine. And I say, these are desperate times. And frankly, I think they're likely to become more desperate times. And the government has to save the greater number of people who can't stand by, the federal government cannot morally stand by, do its duty and allow thousands of people to die from what amounts to preventable death, preventable disease. So I mean, maybe we're not clear on that yet. Maybe it'll take another 500,000 people, a 500,000 deaths to make it clear, but we have to do something to survive as a nation. And if that means putting some gloss on the constitution, if it means finding other ways, then Joe Biden has got to do that. All right, thank you, Jay. Stephanie, Dr. Fauci no longer has Donald Trump as his boss's boss. He's free of that hanging sword of termination of employment over his head. Probably got a fairly good situation where he is right now with Joe Biden. Does Dr. Fauci and his peers need to be more stringent in the criticisms of what's going on and what really needs to take place versus addressing a generalized hesitancy to take the vaccination? Well, I think this situation is really fraught with so many nuances or variables. I mean, first of all, Fauci's a public health person. I mean, he's in the national public health service. So I don't think he'd be harder to get rid of than somebody out of the- Well, you know, I'm gonna interrupt, you know, Dr. Bricks, they pussyfooted around. They tried to call it and tell it like it was. And Donald Trump had that hanging sword of, I'll fire you if you say something I don't like. That sword has been removed for the most part. Is it up to public health officials to say and step in and say, this variant is gonna start killing thousands of people more and we gotta do something about it right this second. We're not getting that right now. Dr. Fauci has put out a generalized warning but it's not as definitive that maybe it ought to be. Well, I think that we're up against a difficulty in this situation that we haven't much had before. I mean, maybe we came close to it when they brought the Ebola patients back to the US from Africa. I think there was a general concern that bringing anybody with that into this country was very dangerous because that spreads like wildfire. This particular virus, while it's very contagious, it's not the kind of thing like these other, the yellow fever and typhoid and all of these other tremendous killers who we have controlled in the past and have overcome and have led the world in getting to know how to manage it and manage it as a country. And but with this coronavirus, it's been a slower spread and people don't see the direct, the line between A and B is not. Yeah, but those days are over. Stephanie, I hate to inform you, but this Delta is 60% more transmissible than the coronavirus. And by the way, coronavirus was highly transmissible. So you've gone to England and Spain who are now shutting down again. They have to shut down and you have Germany and France watching their clusters of population. And unfortunately, most of the cases are of the Delta variant versus the original coronavirus. Well, that is true. And it may take an effect, but again, it looks like this Delta is going after a particular segment of the population. I don't know enough about it to speak in any way as to inform you on that. But as I understand it, again, it may be more contagious, but it's like at the beginning of the corona, it was the old people. And it was the people that weren't the heart of the American population. And I think that that had a real big effect on people. It wasn't going to bother me. It's not going to come get me. It's going to get all these old people. It's going to get these people who are into... Right, exactly. They're vulnerable. I'm not vulnerable. So nobody's feeling vulnerable in the middle of the country and in the middle of the population. So I think until all of those people feel that they aren't vulnerable, we can't have this unifying effect because if it's only going to be the certain populations that are devastated by this and literally devastated as they have been, the rest of them don't seem to care. And that has not... Well, unfortunately, to feel vulnerable, does that mean thousands and thousands of more deaths? Exactly. To those that didn't... And I'll quote Fauci again. I'll quote him again. Every death from COVID-19 is avoidable and it's a tragedy when it happens. And yes, in the abstract, but in the actual being here in this country and wanting to go to football games and wanting to go to the bar, and I'm a young guy and I'm a young gal and nobody else like me is getting it. So there has to be, in addition to all we do, there has to be that sense of vulnerability to pull us all together at the same, with the people that we have now, because they just don't do things in the abstract. I mean, we've done polio. I mean, we've done all of these huge, really bad bugs and gotten them under control and had a whole nation working on it. And we're just not having that kind of a reception, an effect going to make us be one of the nations that could take care of it and have it absolutely go away. We could, we have the capacity to do that, but we haven't done that because the will has not been there of the people. And then we have these leaders who are also being real goofy about it and not seeing that it is a national issue and they're tearing it apart and making it a state's rights issue for what, for purposes that are really undesirable and very difficult to understand. And I think we could've done it much better. And we can- You know, as time goes on, I think ultimate responsibility, and Jay, you suggested it with about DeSantis, is as time goes on, we'll see where the ultimate responsibility or the lack of responsibility took place on how you message to your constituents and whether you did the right thing or not the right thing to either take this thing seriously or pass it off as our freedoms are being impinged upon. Therefore, we'll stand up as Americans and do it our way, our own way. So okay, you know, the best part of the show, well, not the best part, but one of my favorite parts of the show is asking you what your final comments are and your final comments as it pertains either to the Delta variant or anything else on the table. It's your moment to say, this is what I think and here's what's coming up for the next week. Jay? Well, listening to this discussion, participating in, you know, in the public conversation about COVID, I don't know if we give enough credit to the implications of having another major surge, which hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths take place because there are secondary effects to that. We have already seen firsthand how that works and how it reaches everyone, including those who were not infected. What about the economy? What about, you know, the mental, the sensibilities of individuals whose family has been infected? You know, what about planning for the future? What about starting a business? What about the backbone of the country in terms of entrepreneurship and, you know, and business development of every single kind, anywhere, everywhere, it will be affected. Because, you know, when you go through this a second time, a second major surge, wow, people are going to be really, really, really unhappy, depressed in every way, and the country's economy would be depressed. The world itself would be depressed. It's already depressed. I mean, it's nice that Biden can try to reestablish relations with, you know, Western countries and do what he did in Europe. But the reality is that they're also affected. Their economies are also affected. We have the world on a precipice here. So it's not just a few numbers in the South. Thank you, Jay. You know, there's a reason why I love to go around the table and ask for final comments, because I get comments like that. Thank you, Jay. Stephanie, your turn. Well, I think in Hawaii, but people are wishing or prefer to have control. You know, this is a beautiful place. And this is a thriving economy, was a thriving economy, but it almost got taken down to its heels. I mean, it was taken down to its heels. And I mean, we were standing alone on Waikiki. You could go to the Waikiki Beach and be there by yourself. So we... I did. I did. So we've suffered exactly what Jay's talking about is the effects on the economy. And that's exactly what's gonna happen. So, but here again, and I think in our state, not to brag, but we do have a sense of Aloha. Everybody's in the same boat when the tsunami comes, you know, or the hurricane, we're all in it together. And by the way, they don't ever use the E word here for hear hurricanes because there is no evacuation. We are here for the duration on Noget now. So I think we've got some circumstances that help us be unified. And those circumstances are not very well-defined for the whole country and this crisis. Maybe if we'd had a different president leader at the beginning of it, who did focus on these things and even in the abstract for some, we would be much better off. But we are where we are. And but in our state, I think we do have a good sense of how this is about everybody and everybody working hard on it and our leaders taking some direction from what the residency and need to have happened to them. Okay, thank you, Stephanie for your thoughtful comments. You know, I just like to say that, you know, we don't know exactly how this Delta variant is gonna take place. And particularly in those states where vaccination percentages are quite low. And I just pray that my fellow Americans realize that this isn't a game and wasn't a game when we had the regular COVID-19 virus, but now we have something much more deadlier. And I just hope that they set aside politics and do what they can do for themselves and their families and friends and get a vaccination. So with that said, I'd like to thank Jay Fiedel and you, Stephanie Dalton. Thank you for joining us on What Now America? Join us next week, Wednesday at 11 o'clock. And I'm Tim Appichell, your host and we'll see you then, aloha. Aloha, dude, aloha, Stephanie.