 Hey, we're back. We're live to give in Wednesday morning. We've heard from Trump week, which was really terrific just now, you guys. Congratulations. That was a very nice show. I really enjoyed that. I learned from it. And now we're going to do the follow up, Coronaville. Coronaville, what's next? And, you know, of course it's about Trump, but it's also a look ahead and it's a look at the disease. That's what we're going to talk about. That's what we always talk about. Before we begin that, though, and we have Winston, we have Stephanie, we have Cynthia. Before we begin that, we're going to talk about freedom of the press for a minute in these difficult COVID times. And Winston, you had a story that is absolutely worth telling. Would you tell your story about what Alan Warner Park? Well, yeah, I mean, we're seeing this in the media that the freedom of the of the press is is at risk right now. We're seeing this in our state in general, when you have these basically government secrecy laws, when where we can't get access to meetings, these are important meetings, they're police commissions, their heart, money's being spent, whatever it is from the mundane to the important public has a right to accountability and transparency in our government. That is fundamental to our nation. The media is critical to all of this, as we know, from the beginning of this happened in Alamona Park. Well, you know, in Alamona Park, there was a lady down there, June James, and she was down there documenting what had happened to the trees being cut down at Magic Island. And right or wrong, whether you agree with her, her positions or not, she's filming from her camera. And she has told that she has to leave the park because she's not doing one of the permitted activities in the park, which is she says to the to the police officer, I am with the I have a show on Ololo. I am with the free media. I think as the word that she is free media show on Ololo and called Community Matters. I think it's a name for show. And I am just here to show what the city has done taking down these trees. And so she's trying to say they don't look sick or whatever her her points are or aren't. And the officer says it's not a permitted activity. She says so we don't have freedom of the press to report on the thing. He says, no, this is not a First Amendment activity. You're not walking, riding a bike, jogging, surfing or bicycling. Those are the five permitted activities he said. And she said, no, the freedom of the press is an essential activity, you know, under the governor's proclamation. But even it just is, I mean, are we suspending freedom of the press on something so mundane like this? So if something like this where we're just one lady alone with a cell phone videotaping this gets a response of six police cars coming up eventually and cited to and she was going to be removed from the park. They said you can film from outside the park and tell your story, but you can't take a picture from inside the park. This is not permitted. This is a basic issue because what else you wonder if that's being hidden? What are the other really important other? Well, that's important news. But it's what about really important things like police commissions or, you know, what's going on with heart or any other stories? What happened for Stephanie? What's your reaction? Well, I'm just running through my my schema here. I don't know the law on that. But I question whether she's prohibited from taking pictures from inside the park. Okay, Cynthia, what's your reaction? Um, I thought it was outrageous. I saw it on the on on Hawaii News Now this week and it's just that they could do that. I didn't think it could. Well, from the beginning, media has been an essential activity. The cop didn't know he didn't know he was not informed. He was dead wrong. And he was dead wrong on a constitutional level and on the level of the order that was issued by the governor. So I blame the cop. I blame HPD. I blame the chief of police. And I blame the governor for not making it clear. It is fantastic that she was stopped. And it is even more fantastic that she was fined $5,000 for that. Well, I think I think the press ought to make a huge big stink about this. They cannot stop it. You know, the fact is that Trump is down on the press and somehow this leaks out into the community. Even God fearing people begin to question whether the press can can do its thing. Then I find it fantastic that that has leaked out here and it's leaked into the police department. That's what I find. What do you think? What's your opinion on this, Winston? Yeah, of course, it's we have a right as citizens to report on the activities of our government. This was not state secrets. This was a citizen regardless of whatever she's affiliated with. She's a media person. She identifies herself as self-proclaimed media person, has a show on Olalo. But even if she didn't have a show on Olalo, what if she just wanted to film what this is a citizen? That may not be an essential activity. Media is and so this was actually this was the police officer was referring to the proclamation from the mayor, not the governor. But of course, we live under the state, which has a law that says press is an essential activity. And so yeah, it's a failure to not have this be taught that the media is allowed to do this. I don't think it should end here. I think that, you know, whoever is protecting the media, the members of the media, counsel for the media or to make an ongoing stink about this. So it never, ever happens again in our state. It's really way below the standard of our constitutional appreciation. But that's just, you know, in my humble opinion, we'll hear more about this. Let's go to the case in chief, the case in chief here in Coronaville. What's next is really the tita totter issue of whether we care about people dying or we care about resurrecting the economy at the expense of people dying. So let's see, Stephanie, can you bring us current on how this week went in that in that regard? Well, it's a little cognitive dissonance for this week because of the contrast between the numbers of increasing cases in the United States that is available to see if they take out the New York data, which accounts for about one third of all of our data. But if you look at there, that curve without the US curve without the New York data, it's increasing. It's right as in rising a line. And then to have so many states opened at the same time that this, especially in the rural areas where they're doing some of this opening, the cases are rising. So we're almost sowing in the the seeds for that second wave. Yeah. Cynthia, what do you think? Where are we on this? Well, you know, I have a quote from Bill Vosio, the mayor of New York City. And he's talking about Trump and he said he handed billions to airlines, but leaves out America's cities and states that are the real drivers of the economy. And so we're gonna need to cut our budgets. So that's police, fire, nurses. So these are the budgets that are gonna be cut. So if we have another surgeons going forward, like we are told by all the scientists we are going to have as we go back, that the states are going to have to make budget cuts. And the people that are going to get cut the most are the people we need the most. Winston, you know, what about this cognitive dissonance that Stephanie talks about? There was a there was a program, a particularly interesting segment by Rachel Maddow this week, where she did research on all the meatpacking plants in rural areas in the Midwest. And she found hundreds and hundreds of cases that had sprung to life in these Midwest and meatpacking plants. And the same authorities, you know, around those plants and those communities were telling people they had to go back to work. One governor, I can't remember the state, he said, if you don't go back to work, and if you stay home, we're gonna cut off your employment benefits, your unemployment benefits. It was extraordinary that Trump's, his name should be erased, Trump's, you know, instruction on this is so confused that you can take it either way. And the gestalt of it is you force people to go back up to work in a meatpacking plant, where most of the people there have coronavirus. What kind of a thing is that? Anyway, I just add that as fuel to the fire. Where are we on this? Is it rational? What's happening? You know, it's not rational. You've got people that want to go back to work that needed paycheck. This is where the government can step in and say, you are going to get a, you know, a universal basic income for a while, if you don't have one right now. So you can stay floated until we get this thing under control, rather than saying, we're opening up them all come shop at Gucci Prada Chanel. I mean, who's going to go out number one, but if they do, and I know people want to get out, they're going stir crazy. But do you want to go into an environment where half your coworkers are sick with a very deadly disease? And you don't know if it's going to be you or that you're bringing it home to your kids or your parents, or, or anybody else for that matter. And right now, we have a handle on it. Lucky we live Hawaii to keep the borders closed, mandatory testing for anyone who wants to handle, I want to question that. Do we have a handle? These mimicking plants are going crazy with cases. And rural areas are catching what what New York seems to have flattened rural areas are if you look at the curve side by side, the rural areas are going sky high. Do we have a handle on it? Come back in two weeks, and you're going to see and three weeks, you're going to see mass cases from what we can understand in those same very areas. People, you know, they in this case, they're going to do what they're going to do. But here in Hawaii, since we have so few cases, I'd say, we're lucky here. Don't allow anyone in who's not tested. You know, you notice what the governor did to your point about shopping centers. First thing he says is we're going to open up the shopping center. I mean, I say centers because Al Havana is is all shopping centers rolled into one. That's the first thing he says it wasn't 24 hours where he said, Well, we're gonna hold up on that for a little bit. I think he must have watched the, you know, the Rachel Maddow show. But you know, the reality, the reality is that going to the shopping center exposes you to any number of people, local or otherwise, who are the silent carriers. And then you go home and you hug your wife, whatever. Okay, before you know it, we have an exponential expansion. So this is a great concern in Hawaii. And I do not credit him for opening the shopping centers. I think that was not a good move. But I credit him with changing his mind on it. At least he knows how to change his mind. They don't know how to do that in Washington. Yeah. So Stephanie, would you go to the shopping center? I think I am mourning out the people already because this is going to get a national travesty again. And Axios said, Minnesota and Nebraska are the highest increasing states, which has to do with the me packing plants, I believe. But no, I it's so misguided. And it's so in in humane. He's he's I my heart goes out to all of the people that are facing death. I mean, if they're in the high risk groups, or if they have underlying circumstances symptoms, and and they have no choice because they can't lose their their job. So yeah, this is different. This is different than in say, Michigan, a week ago, where they all come come down with their AK 47s. And the other accoutrements they came down with demonstrate just how skin and they are. That's different because they wanted to do that. They'd made up their own mind completely erroneously. And without any consideration for their fellow citizen, they came down and then busted into the state legislature and all that just really loony tunes. This is different, though, the meat packing plant is different because these people need to work. They the job, the only job they can get in this town is working in the meat packing plant. And the government is not standing by the government is forcing them, you know, in order to feed their family that they have to go and work. And and the government is allowing the owner of the meat packing plant to do whatever or nothing to protect them. So these guys who work at the meat packing plant, they're totally victims, totally different than the skinheads. And that just takes this whole thing to another step. Thank you, you're much more. Well, the desperation is frightening that they must feel my heart just so goes out to them. And of course, the the seat, the seat room group, what left floor the corporate folks, they're making a trillion millions hand over fist. It's inexcusable that there's no, there's no consideration, no humanity, even for a brief time, as Winston points out, even if even if the company paid for them, give them give them two weeks out of corporate. Well, you know, what's worse is that these rural areas in the Midwest like that, they have no hospitals. And they get sick, if they get sick, and they're dying, there's really no medical infrastructure for them. It's travesty on a huge scale. Wait, watch to see. But you know, my problem is Aristotelian. Aristotelian. Aristotelian. My problem is, you know, so you promise that testing will be available. You promise that masks will be available. You issue this kind of vague order about social distancing. And then before you do any of that, in fact, at the same time, you withdraw all of that. So everybody's confused about whether to do it. Then you say, Okay, you guys, you have to go back. You know, so my question to you, Cynthia, is what happened? What happened to the masks? You know, what what happened to the testing? What happened to these people are walking the streets? Now, by the way, it leaks out in Honolulu. I took a ride with my wife, we had to go somewhere on Friday after the last, you know, coronavirus show. And, and we got a traffic jams, a number of traffic jams here. So it leaks out from Washington. And here in Hawaii, even people are not taking this seriously. But what my problem is the Aristotelian one, if you say, you're going to try to solve the health problem. And here's the steps. And then you don't do that. And then you say, everybody back to work, let's reopen the economy. You have the you have the the fallacy of the inverted middle. You remember that Winston, right? Aristotelian logic. Yeah. And that's what we have here, the fallacy of the inverted middle. Does it make any sense? I wrote my PhD thesis on Aristotelian. You know, all your kids out there, this is going to be on the final exam. I'm telling you now. So Cynthia, what happened to testing? What happened to masks? What happened to social distancing? Do we no longer need any of those things? We need all of them. And I believe that's why he fired that one IG, the inspector general that oversaw the stockpile, the federal stockpile, because she was saying we don't have enough of that stuff. Still don't have enough PPE, still don't have enough of the things that we need to treat this virus, especially if it makes its comeback again, you know, and, and then just with all of these, the, the Tyson plants and all these plants, they're not even having OSHA come back in for regular OSHA, you know, restrictions and things. They're not even using that. So everything is gone. So we know for sure that all of these are all the cases are going to skyrocket for sure. Winston, I do want to give you the opportunity to speak a little about your PhD dissertation. I haven't, it hasn't been formally accepted, but like I'm working on it. Basically, you don't need a PhD. You don't need a master's. You don't need a bachelor's to realize that something's not adding up here. And if we've got a mass pandemic that is controllable by social distancing, by washing your hands, by wearing a mask in public, because we know, basically how it's transmitted, and we can get it down. We can get it down. Now, it may be, and I read this, I don't know, civil beat or the advertiser somewhere that says, in Hawaii, we can still shut this thing down. We can make this a safe location because we are so that the number of new cases is so small, and we could triple test everyone before they get here and then after they arrive so that with three different tests so that they don't, if there's one that was faulty, okay, but that maybe on the mainland, they've given up on the idea of containment at all. So it may be that we don't know, but they've gone with this idea that they're going for herd immunity, and that, and they're just going to let the chips fall where they may, and let me just explain what herd immunity is about. It's arguably 60% of the people in a given population have had the virus. And when you reach that level of infection, then the herd has immunity. Everyone has immunity and the virus stops propagating. The problem is that if 60% of the people in the community have coronavirus, X% will die. It's a kind of a strange analysis. Again, testing our Aristotelian logic. Why exactly would you condemn X% of the people to die? I mean, isn't there a better way in science in the 21st century than condemning people to die? It may be that the cat is out of the bag at this point, and they're just realizing it, but they can't say that. So maybe they're just letting it go. I mean, if the meat packing places are 50% infected right now, you're near the 60%. And just to disclaimer, I'm not getting a PhD and I'm not injecting Lysol either. So you know, trying to deal with reality here as best as I can. Well, I think it's clear that it's doable, but you have to stick on the discipline. And then it becomes doable. Doable with the herd. You hold and defer the curve down. And then you little by little, you introduce some more steps in opening the economy. But that's really not what's happening. And Trump doesn't, he doesn't know the nuance here anyway. And he's not listening to anyone. And he's firing people who give him advice. And he's, you know, the terminating task forces to shut fouchy up and everyone. So we're not getting information or instructions on any consistent level. To do this, so that we don't have a resurgence, you have to have consistent instructions. And you have to follow them. We are having neither. And so, you know, Stephanie, what do you think? I mean, all that we know, all that we've talked about, are we going to have a second wave? We're going to have a resurgence of this infection? Well, Dr. Fowle, she guarantees it. He absolutely has stated categorically that we're going to have it. But let me just bring up another myth that we're discussing here. And that is herd immunity. There's no guarantee there's any herd immunity. The bubonic plague didn't have, didn't provide, confer herd immunity. Everybody was dead after it finished. So why, and you don't hear anybody talking about her. You heard it here on Think Tech. If you're dead, you don't have any risk of getting coronavirus. Am I right about that? No risk at all. That's true. So we could say that the 100% wipeout means, you know, there's But I think your point is very telling because there was a report a few days ago about somebody who had had coronavirus and then got it again. What? So so it is this no assurance whatsoever that if you have it, you're exempt from getting getting it again. I think a lot of studies that are trying to take a look at this, but I think that they are not talking about it because everybody is thinking about herd immunity, whereas we have no basis upon which to believe. Thank you for that. So Stephanie, I mean, Cynthia, what does it look like if we get a second wave or resurgence? What is it going to be? Because, you know, it's like we've been there. Done that. We've had we've had the cold shock of the first wave. What is the second wave going to look like? Certainly it's not the same. It must be different. But how? It's going to be worse because it's going to be more widespread. If you look at history, the Spanish flu, the second wave was much worse than the first wave. Both the head of the CDC and Dr. Fauci have both said that the second wave will be worse. So I think we can listen to the scientists. But what does worse mean? There's going to be more that number of cases is going to be higher. The number of deaths is going to be higher because right now we're starting with an already taxed medical system. So if we have another wave now, and our health system is already overtaxed, then it's going to be impossible. The whole thing about flattening the curve was to give the health system a rest. So they didn't collapse, you know. So, okay, and Winston, there's another thing too is, if we have another, let's assume we open the economy, Trump would like to open it wide, full throttle right now today. But let's assume the de facto is somewhere in the middle. Some states yes, some states no, some states a little, some states a lot. But how would a second wave or multiple waves going forward, how would they affect the economy? We know what happened in the first wave. It stopped the economy cold, you know, like, completely dead cold. What happens in the second wave about the economy? It's hard. It's hard to say. I mean, just imagining that that's why when I'm looking at, I think, I really think I'm very become Hawaii centric, because we have control over it. You know, Queens Hospital dismantled their COVID tent out in front of the emergency room, today or yesterday, because we got a handle on it here. We need a permanent condition. Are you making some sort of assumption that in a second wave, we would continue to have a handle on it? I think that here in Hawaii, if we have proper testing for every person coming in this state after we've extinguished it, then we can have a complete handle on it here in Hawaii that triple testing. Yeah, we can do it here in the mainland. That's a pretty big assumption that we can test everyone coming into the state. If you want to get a test right now today, you would have a big time getting it because you're not demonstrating any symptoms. And if any of us wanted to get that test, we would have a hard row to hoe to get it. So I'm unconvinced that we could nail everybody coming into the state with a test. I'm also convinced that we could turn them back. I'm unconvinced that we could make them sit in a room for two weeks, and that we have the police force. Remember the police force, we talked about that earlier, and that we have the police force to force them to stay in the room for two weeks, right? Well, that's an assumption that we have the question. Okay, I see that, Jay. But you know, I mean, the huge majority of our police officers, and even the one in that case, I think, if they're not given instructions on what's what they're supposed to do, that's what happens. So but the huge majority of them are are helping us to live by the law. And so they deserve our respect. And, and yet, you know, they also need to know that it's a free speech zone. But I think that they're well within their rights to say, we have a pandemic situation, if you are coming in the state, you will be quarantined, you will be tested before you get here, you will be tested after you get here. And you must comply with the laws of our state. And that's it. And you don't get a choice. If you want to come to Hawaii, that's it, you can't prevent people perhaps from coming here at all. But I think we could very easily shut this down here. My main concern, though, is in the main land. It reminds me of the movie Brazil. Do you remember that where Catherine Helman, I think she's sitting there having coffee, and there's bombs going off all around. And it's just a natural thing, because there's so many. It's just what the situation is, but they continue drinking tea and having cake. And I wonder if it's going to be something like that that they just say, Oh, well, you know, it just happened. And, you know, an entire nursing home got wiped out here. And, you know, everybody died. But it's okay, we're just we're going to go to Gucci and buy our watches. I don't know. That's what I'm imagining. Well, let me take a page out of Tim Epicella's book and ask you guys, you know, this is an impossible question. I apologize in advance. So what can we expect what next in the next week or two here on Coronaville? What is going to happen? Stephanie, go first. I'd like Winston's viewpoints now, because I think we are not the fastest one on Axios. Who's coming down? Arkansas and Arizona are way down. And I might have to do might have something to do with him going out there. But anyway, and Hawaii is still a little hot, decreasing, but we have such small numbers to begin with. So I'm thinking that we're going to continue to decrease and and that traffic's picking up. I really think that was such a good example, Jay. Yeah, I was amazed. There are people on the roads again, we're getting back. So people are believing in this, I think. So we are having a reaction much like the mainland. But ours is based on at least data trends. And theirs is it. Okay, so hopefully what we're seeing is based on the population doing data trends to and listening to those on the TV. But EGAY or the mayor, people are going to have to come out and give us some more direction. If this starts, you know, to pick up in cases, we were still down to no cases. We're on one case a day, but they're usually oldsters, people that went to the hospital, a man got it in the hospital, you know. Okay, well, now, now you Cynthia, what do you see for the next week or so? Well, I think I kind of agree with Winston and Stephanie that it's different for us here in Hawaii, because we are isolated and able to self isolate in ways that people on the mainland are not able to. So I think it's going to be different in different places. We've got those meat packing plants that are just going crazy still, there's no end in sight to those guys. And they're going to start to, you know, spread out into the community. We're just going to start to see numbers skyrocket is what I think we're going to see. Okay, Winston, you know, Winston, we already know how you feel. And, you know, vis a vis Hawaii, we have, you know, two of your co your co hosts here agree with you. So I wouldn't argue that and I wouldn't repeat it. But what do you think about the country in the next week or two? What do you think about the world? Take a minute. Oh, you know what, it's it's hard to say every every week brings such new revelations. The shocking things are these folks, you know, going into stores and wiping their noses on people that when they tell them they have to wear a mask. I mean, what what happened to a nation of sociopaths and psychopaths? But but that said, there's so many other positive things of people springing up and helping all across the board. We see it. I get it comes into my emails every day. People are stepping up. They're doing the right thing in Hawaii. We're wearing our masks. If you're not, you're a pariah or a lunatic. And and you will wear you have to wear your mask. Everybody is so it's a great week to become a vegetarian. If you don't know how Google it, how do I become a vegetarian? And what's the benefit behind it? You know, it's a it's a good week to do that because you're going to save the planet and save yourself and save some poor meat packer who can now go into work in, you know, biotech or something. But hopefully people will gain some sense about how they comport themselves nationally, locally, certainly we're already doing it. But nationally, maybe they, even if they have more freedom to go out and do something, they will still realize, Hey, this is dangerous. Let's take precautions. Let's do all we can to protect ourselves, our loved ones and our society in general. And I think people are stepping up by the outliers are hopefully going to remain that way. And, you know, let's let's remain optimistic as best as we can and keep our borders closed in Hawaii as best as we can until we figure out a best way to keep to keep the virus out and keep our people safe. Okay, Winston, you know, you are an optimistic person. I think we have achieved that profile for you here. And I am going to, I'm going to remind you of your optimism next week. Maybe the others, the others on the show will help me do that. Okay, that's Winston Welch, Stephanie Dalton, Cynthia Sinclair. Thank you so much. We greatly appreciate your contribution to this critically important discussion. Aloha.