 Welcome to think tech Hawaii. On Thursday December 2, you're watching a weekly discussion show politics for the people. And I am your host, Stephanie stone all 10. Our show topic today is the Omicron variant of the coven virus, where to come from. What is it. How are we going to do it deal with it. I have a guest here to discuss this topic with us, and I'm welcoming them to and introducing them as J. find out Winston Welch, and Tim apachella. So given our new condition in in the land of the virus, or I should say the planets virus says. Now that we have this new one. We start a little discussion about where it came from. Okay, where did this Omicron virus come from actually variant variant of the virus come from. I was telling before the show and really ticked off an MSNBC and Brian Williams for suggesting that maybe it was Biden's fault, and that he should have could have done something. We all heard about this a week ago. I'm not sure where he could have or should have done. And it was, you know, not something that you could anticipate we know that viruses mutate. And there are thousands of mutations between viruses that are quote of concern. Most of those mutations are not of concern. This one's of concern, because it's highly infectious. We don't know if it's highly lethal yet. We don't know how it relaxed and reacts to existing, you know, vaccines and therapeutics we don't know. And if you look at the newspaper that Washington Post in the New York Times today, there's no real information on that. There's not enough time we have to, we have to wait and see. We have to let the scientists do that data gathering. We don't have enough data, not in this country. So we don't know yet. And I suggest that there'll be a lot of political mishmash back and forth, as there is now in the Senate over the funding bill for the government, which is really how shall I say insane. They don't want to fund the government until Biden gets off his vaccine initiative. That's insane. And there'll be, you know, political things that happen after all, this is politics for the people isn't it Stephanie. We're going to see that happening for the next couple of weeks and then we'll hear some, you know, scientific conclusions. But let me say that in Africa and Botswana, there were a lot of cases the number of vaccinations and that part of Africa is something like, I think it's 6%, it's not very high. And this allows for a lot of people to get sick. And thus it allows for a lot of mutations to take place. And most of them, as I said, are not of concern, but it's mutating all the time. That's what viruses do. And one of just one, just one of those mutations turned out to be a bad, a bad case. And now it's spreading around the world because it's highly infectious. So the question is how much of an emergency is this, because at the end of the day, you know, our governments our politicians, who know very little about how to handle this sort of thing are going to have to decide what to do. And not to spend too much time on it. My feeling is that we already lost nearly 800,000 people. I don't know if there was, say a car crash in Moela Ely, and five people died to be front front page and everybody would be weeping and wailing. But how about 800,000 people. Where's the weeping and wailing it's like, it's like the Holocaust, you know, 6 million people, how do you, how do you, how do you react to the, the killing of 6 million people. I think, I think we're, we're in for it actually. And I think we have to allow and encourage our government officials to do whatever they think is necessary recommended by Dr. Fauci and others to protect us and to not let that 800,000 get any higher, whatever it takes. It amazes me. I haven't told you guys but I had experienced a long struggle story yesterday where I met a fellow who was wearing his mask halfway down. And he said he was there to get a vaccine but he hated getting a vaccine. He didn't believe in vaccines he didn't care about vaccines. But he had to get on a plane. And this was involuntary. And there he was talking at me with this mask halfway down. And I went back on him. And what I'm telling you is there are people in Hawaii who don't believe in vaccines. There are people in Hawaii where you have to be the policeman at the elbow. You have to tell them in no uncertain terms, you will take the vaccine. And we're not doing that just yet. We're getting closer to it, but now it's become all the more emergent. And thank you for sharing that experience, Jay. That's very good to know. And I hesitate to ask you if you gave him any advice, but did you? No, I turned my back on him. I did not want to have a conversation with somebody whose mask was down and who did not have, he had not taken the vaccine. I'm not to say that the vaccine will necessarily work with Omicron. One thing we had a show about this yesterday. One thing is these mutations, these variants displace each other. So the first version of COVID was displaced in terms of the population by Delta. Okay, and Delta, I suggest, may very well be displaced by Omicron. And so you don't know whether the existing toolkit will work against the next evolution. Exactly. That's why I was going to ask Tim, what, how does this Omicron variant compare to the other two strains addressing some of these issues Jay has not referred to. So how does it? We don't know yet. This is my short answer. My longer answer is Omicron represents that which we feared. And that's what was criticized about third world nations. I have second world nations, second world nations, third world nations, not getting enough vaccine to properly, you know, have the population inoculated so that these variants don't spread, don't begin to spread. And Africa is a classic example where you have a very low percentage of the population that has actually received any vaccine. So Omicron is a classic example of how mutations occur and why they occur. So to, to the extent of which, you know, the ferocity of how this is going to take over, it's unclear. The stock market seems to be pricing it as it knows something, and it's pricing the marketplace as if it's going to be a variant, but not a variant where the vaccines won't be able to prevent it. We had the gentleman who flew into California, a younger gentleman, and he's not hospitalized. He was vaccinated. He didn't have a booster, but he had at least his vaccinations on board. And he's been quarantined, of course, but he is not in the hospital. So that an initial good sign. But he also has youth working for him. So we'll see. Was that the Omicron that he has? He's been tested. That's the one that's been detected in the United States. It's in quarantine. And he was vaccinated. So it's a breakthrough case of a brand new variant. Okay. The second one reported this morning. Okay. The second one is Jay. That's the Minnesota guy. That's right. To the anime convention. What do you know about him? Not much. Okay, I don't think we know much at all yet as Tim pointed out in the beginning we're waiting for the data to get collected. Yeah, so what do you think Winston do you do we have the tools to manage this, whatever it's, it's full blown version is or whatever we find out what do you think about the vaccines we have in the therapeutics, are they effective enough for limiting. It's the spread of this version of the fire. Well, from everything we know or that we're being told, we don't have enough information to make that determination. However, there's still other variants of the disease which are very well experienced now the delta and the original COVID and probably some others that may be covered with the vaccine, but certainly delta and the original seem to be very effective and respond to the vaccinations that we have it doesn't mean originally the CDC was telling us of course and when was that just before end of June or something that we wouldn't be infectious we wouldn't be contagious if we had the disease. I thought at the time boy, you guys are, I know you want to get some good news out but don't jump the gun here and then of course we had the, you know, the P town outbreak where most of the people had been vaccinated. And the timing of course is that if you are fully vaccinated and I think at this point we need to consider fully vaccinated to shots and a booster and if you've had Johnson and Johnson, I'm sorry, you need to switch over and get your booster with a Pfizer or Moderna from what I can understand and what I've read, but to Johnson and Johnson's would be better than nothing for sure. I just said how this is going to affect how it's going to deal with with this new Omicron. We just don't know. Do we have the tools and Winston could you comment on the fact that the number of mutations in Omicron is like more than 50. The number of mutations in Delta was like four or five. So this is way more sophisticated complex than the previous jump to Delta. It could be but that could also mean that it's that it's weakening or or may burn out. Now, the fact that the that who and CDC have that is a variant of concern. It's I think is what they call it. It's a different level so they they obviously know something out there. You know, we have to go back to the original what we have which is what can you do personally to protect yourself and the community and that is at this point, continuing what we've been doing for the last year and a half, watching the fans wearing a mask. When the shots became available getting the shots, and continuing to get shots and it looks like, you know, when you ask about the future. These MRNA backs vaccines can be made so quickly that I read that the companies need about 100 days to make the vaccines and because they've been, you know, shown to be reasonably safe and effective. And as far as keeping people out of the hospitals and dying. I wonder if the FDA is going to come out with sort of a blanket fast track approval for variants that are coming out in the future. And then it's essentially like a flu virus because I don't think I don't know that COVID is going to go away in the next few years and we're just going to have other variants and we're going to just get boosters and and updates like that. Thank you. And there was a great article in the paper yesterday in the Honolulu Star Advertiser where it said here in Hawaii we can protect ourselves by requiring and the US looks like it's moving to this as well. Testing within 24 hours not 72 hours 24 hours of coming to the country. We need to institute that to the state as well and then like England is doing within two days after your arrival you do a follow up test. And, you know, the US I believe you have to be vaccinated to come here to begin with so it's a combination of both vaccinations and then testing to prevent more spread but this, you know, it's a matter of days or hours before we see the virus in Honolulu and the rest of Hawaii because we're having 30,000 people come a day and there's really very little control on it. And Jay do you think that those for those regulations or those dictums are going to hold for coming into the country given what's already happening now that they're holding up the Congress on the debt ceiling because of these mandates of vaccines. So do you think we're going to be safe with the, with those mandates that we have in place right now for the airlines. Well it helps if you can't, you know, take a flight without being vaccinated without wearing a mask. There are some people who really don't like that, including the freedom caucus and in the Senate, they're going to try to stop all of that. Right here in Hawaii, like my friend at longs, who really don't like being told to be vaccinated. So the issue is going to be still today. I think Omicron is going to change this issue one bit, whether we can mandate vaccines. In my view, it's life and death. How many more hundreds of thousands of people will die while these guys oppose vaccines. That is insane. So, I'm not sure where it's going. One thing is clear is that if you, we only have a certain number of tools in the toolkit we should use them. One of them is vaccinations. Everybody including Dr Fauci, who I still love. I still love him. I'm telling you is saying that we've got to use what we have. This may change. I'm not sure I agree about the 100 days Winston. I think it's going to take them a longer time to develop vaccines against a more complex virus. And I think it's going to, it's going to be issues about approval at the CDC. There were issues before. Hopefully it won't get stuck this time. It's about distribution. There'll be the moral issues about sending them overseas to try to, you know, have global effect. All these things are not going to happen in 100 days. Exactly. So Tim, what do you think the Biden, the Biden administration can do about this situation and be accepted by the public. I hate to put it in these terms, but I'm going to Biden administration needs to be stopped being scared of its own shadow. The Biden administration needs to get the FCC involved immediately. We have a almost 800,000 deaths in the United States. We have a certain news channel. I'll call it Q and on Fox family and friends. I don't care what what the station is who the host is who are constantly undermining the credibility of health public officials, trying to ring the bell about a new variant. Though we know nothing about this variant really, we have Fox and friends going around chitin and chatting laughing it up that the Biden administration will be introducing a new variant, a new, a new COVID variant every October, and you can count on it. What the little host there were implying was, this is again a political ploy from the Biden Democratic Administration that every October before election. And we'll have something new to shake our knees about and be fearful, and vote Democratic, because that's almost like having a wartime president. I'm tired of it. And the Biden administration is asleep at the wheel. The FCC should be getting in there and saying we have a public health crisis. These, these hosts are creating an environment that not taking this thing seriously, but directly vaccines. And, okay, so, so there's a lawsuit from Fox, against the FCC, let it go to court. Let the First Amendment be at issue, but stop them, and then the Biden administration has the authority to do this, and they're scared their chicken, and it's time to stop this misinformation disinformation about COVID and its cures. And that's the first thing that the Biden administration can do. And the other thing is to support and then they are distributions and, and, and public education. But I'm fed up with it. I'm also going to mention Laura Logan, a very qualified journalist that worked for a long time at 60 minutes has the audacity to compare Dr. Fauci to the doctor of death of Auschwitz, Dr. Fauci. Although she didn't say it was her opinion, she said, it's the opinions of others that she's hearing constantly that Dr. Fauci is no better than Dr. Mengele. How irresponsible and reporting, how disgusting, how not one word one peep from the Murdoch brothers or Murdoch senior himself to say, enough's enough. Laura, Laura Logan, tear up your SPJ card, your society professional journalism, tear the card up and throw it away. I'm done. These are you're describing political the political challenges to the administration so so Winston. What can be done about this what is it that that that Tim is suggesting and calling on. He's calling out the president to do something so what are those things that he can do that will have effect. You know that we saw that this nation as well as other nations to EU, Israel, Japan's completely closed its borders to everybody, unless you're a Japanese national coming back and then you're going to be quarantine but they're, they've got like 100 cases in the whole country now they've they don't want it coming in and they are in a position where they can just close the borders to incoming traffic, but so could we. You know before with ill effects and people will point out what those were obviously here in Honolulu but we're surrounded by 25,000 square miles of water. We could implement something here on the statewide level if the federal government doesn't. Or, or if the federal government does on a on folks coming into the country, we could very easily replicate that here and say, you have to be vaccinated to come to Hawaii and you have to be tested before and after. And just a normal protocol as well as continuing requiring for public venues I saw that everything was lifted yesterday capacity controls and restaurants. I'm not really comfortable going and sitting next to someone one foot away as you know some of these restaurants are super crowded as we know here in Honolulu and I think that restriction was lifted and I'm not sure if we have to have a vaccine card or not I think that we do to go to those restaurants I don't think that changed, and I think we're still required to wear masks in public venues, but they seem to have lifted caps and I noticed that the governor has allowed the mayors of each county to more or less come up with their own rules and they have slightly different rules whether it's on you know Kauai or, or the big Island or Maui or this island. So, as far as nationally, you know I thought when Pete footage said last week that he, I think it was about last week that he was not going to impose any mandate on people flying on planes or trains as far as having to get a shot I think that the president's also said the same thing that there will not be a national mandate on this. It doesn't mean that the states themselves and cities and locales can't crack down on this. It would be nice to have a message from the top that says this is an emergency, and everyone in the nation needs to pay attention to this but we're not at that point now so we've got to devolve to the local level and the personal level and that's where we need to go I saw the Greeks, they're taking away people's pensions a quarter of their pensions if they're over, over 60 they're taking a quarter of their pension if they don't get a shot because nine out of 10 people dying there are over 60. The Slovakians are doing it reversed or giving them about 600 bucks to get a shot if they haven't so you know the sticker the carrot, whatever works we got to just look around see what is working our, our vaccination rate was revised downward I saw. I think that we were at about 77%. So how do we reach that other 23% and just let them know this is really important for your health and other people's health and Tim's ideas interest and interesting one. We need to reach out to religious organizations civic organizations. Schools, however, people are getting their information I saw Facebook was made a massive push to pull down anti vaxxer theories that you know as Tim was talking about. I don't know if you could require Fox to have a disclaimer running on it like Facebook does that says something like the CDC, like like like pills often have this as the FDA does not endorse the FDA says this medication or this product is not endorsed treat any health condition maybe something like that when any article is run about COVID on the news that has to have a bottom line that says up to date news is obtainable at the CDC and that may be something that for all brought national broadcasters that they have to have when they're running stories that might be one idea, or I'm going to point people to correct inaccurate information as the best experts that we have have it. Yeah, and as far as the documentary comparison that's reprehensible and we have to have everyone just jumping on that calling that out. I'm Jay crickets crickets. Crickets. Yeah, right. Right. Correct crickets. Nothing. So, Jay, as to Winston's first comments about the shutdown in the country. Well, I think we can do that right but we can't do that state by state we've already been through that. That's already had cases suit suing the governor and everything about shutting Hawaii down, because just like Alaska can't do it either but we can't interfere with interstate commerce and it is that that the part of our law that says you can't shut out people from your state is that correct. Can you kind of give us a little bit of information about I think I think it's clear that you can require people to be vaccinated to, or at least wear masks, you know some kind of controls on it. But my view in general is that, okay, only only 800,000 people have died over this. When, when is it a national emergency is it 900,000. Is it a million. Is it 2 million. One of those guys in the freedom caucus going to get rational they're not rational now. And furthermore, there have been federal judges who have set aside Biden's orders for vaccination. And I find that extraordinary they they must be Trump appointed judges. And so what you have is a is a mixed mixture of a venue in the communities in the states, and among the judges in the federal government and I would not for a moment have any level of confidence in the Supreme Court of the United States. We are completely fragmented on these issues. If a Brian Williams to blame Biden for this new. Omicron is ridiculous. I will never feel the same way about about Brian Williams of the fact is it came on all of us. And the fact is that nothing has changed politically. All the GOP guys the Q anon guys the conspiracy guys, they, they heightened their attack on Biden, as if it was Biden's fault. They heightened their attack on on any public official who would try to impose these limitations. That is insane. Where do we stop 2 million 3 million 4 million in China and we have a host that just got back from a 50 day trip to China. They made him wait in quarantine for 22 days before he could even get out. And had he not complied with any of their regulations about, you know, doing safe things being quarantine, taking the, you know, taking the vaccine wearing mask, all that stuff. That would have been in jail. And that's the way Xi Jinping gets this done. And you know you can make the kind of comparison that Xi Jinping makes with Joe Biden. Xi Jinping says to him we get it done, you get it done. And Biden would have to say no we have a lot of trouble we have to beg and plead and and offer all these incentives. Anyway, this one, this one house of ill repute in Europe, that is offering free sex. If you take a vaccine, and, and, and the business has been gangbusters. That's helpful. There's an incentive. Well, you know, Tim. I can't follow. I can't follow this. I can't follow it very far. Okay. All right. The, but J is bringing up to your prior to the, the red light district being a part of the reinforcement of our, our preferences here for how to act under COVID. What about the GOP, are they, they're already demonstrating do you think they're already demonstrating the use of everything Biden does any policies any, any of these proclamations. They're using this to undermine Biden for the next election and the Democrats the Democrats and Biden for the next election is that is that what the big goal is here because as you say it's insanity. Is that the goal, the undermining of the Democrats for the election. Well, they've been doing it from day one so we have 800,000 people almost dead as a result so the party of obstruction is the party of destruction. Yes, they've been at it for for two years, trying to undermine the credibility of Democrats and the Democratic Party by saying that it's a Democratic hoax. Jay and I did an interview a year ago in March 2020 and the quote from Donald Trump was it's a Democratic hoax, and that's when we had eight people that eight Americans that were dead in the Seattle to Kirkland area. And so from day one, they've been trying to pin. You know the sky is falling attitude on the Democrats and there's nothing to fear, and that this is just nothing but a flu. Well 800,000 deaths later you know that's one hell of a flu. And they should knock it off. I mean they really should just knock it off because, and I don't see why I don't get this but their own constituents are the ones who are dying. The statistics very much show that in those states where, you know, vaccine is not encouraged and mass wearing is not encouraged and social distancing is not encouraged. Those states and those populations are the ones that in the ICU, and they're dying. When do they get it that their constituents are dying. If I go with Jay, is it 1 million 2 million or 3 million what what number will it take for them to get real. What do you say about the Florida data that shows that they've had reductions in COVID and hospitalizations, the latest data. Again, these are waves or you also have Florida that's not a Midwestern state. It's wintertime people are out and about outside. And that's why he's been blessed with this as well. That's why our numbers are the way they are they're rather their low numbers. You know the Greeks knew this millenniums ago, where all their forums and activities were held outside, even in winter, because they didn't know what a virus was but they knew there was a correlation between indoors and death. And believe me the Greeks had viruses just as bad as COVID, if not worse. Yeah, well Winston, we had a viewer's question, which I believe you may have already answered in, but I was going to read it to see if you wanted to add any more so what do you think this is the question what do you think the government should do to quell the misinformation is there anything specific to misinformation that that you might want to add. A million dollar question isn't it first of all they need to produce only accurate, clear information you know this, even the roll out of the booster has been, you know here there and everywhere, but to address Jay's point, we're not China. We don't say if you don't get the vaccine we're going to imprison you or shoot you in the head. The Chinese can lock down cities of millions of people, and basically, you know, there's more humane Winston, the country that has 800,000 deaths or two or three million deaths or the country that prevents that. Well, that is what that may be but we're not China we don't operate like that. We also have a deep history in this nation of anti vaxxers. Going back to the earliest days and so you're fighting a system of where people are afraid and don't trust the government and haven't trusted the government for forever maybe in this country maybe it's ingrained in part of the American psyche so when the government says this that people say oh well that's come from the government so I don't know if I can trust it. And that's just the way that that it is here. As far as combating yet you know I would like to think that rational saying scientific thinking that can be proven you know invalidated would carry the day, but in fact we have people that are just going on beliefs because they saw something on tiktok or Instagram that says oh if you take the vaccine you're going to sprout antennas or whatever it is. And if that's what people, when their level of education or sophistication is there, or if they're leaders in a religious sphere or and their very belief system that says my my deity or my religion is going to protect me and therefore I don't need to follow any precautions. You have those types of situations to, and then you have others that just say I don't want to get this vaccine because I don't know what's in it and it could be poison. Well I don't know what's in Tylenol. Right, so there's a lot of countering to that we're not going to get anywhere wear your mask get your shots, wash your hands, do what you can. That's all we've been able to do the all these years and talk to people and really make an outreach to those and see if you can get to them but, again, the standard bearer of the Republican Party, as we just found out from the Guardian yesterday, or the day before, was tested positive before his debate with Joe Biden and infected a whole bunch of people and then had a super spreader event at the Rose Garden to introduce Amy Coby Barrett. So we're not talking about people that are necessarily dealing with principled leaders for rational thought processes here. Right, so let's do a lightning round here. We're set to close shortly so let's 30 second comment to this. This is this paradox that we're trying to work with. So Jay, would you give us a lightning round finish here. I just saw this morning. There was a case decided I think it was by a court of appeals somewhere in the country. There was a claim made by anti-vaxxers that a given social media had no right to moderate their comments in the social media, no right to exclude their anti-vaxx comments in the social media on the basis of the First Freedom of Speech. This is a very interesting counterclaim. The counterclaim, which prevailed in that case, but who knows what will happen when it goes to the Supreme Court, was that social media also has First Amendment rights. And in moderating comments that they feel are inappropriate and against the public interest, they are exercising their First Amendment rights. And that's what this court found. This is really mind blowing. It's a way in which social media can deal with the crazy First Amendment claims by the anti-vaxxers. Your thoughts on that, Tim, or in addition to that? Well, I say let the government do what it needs to do to prevent this virus from catching fire and then the lawsuits be damned, deal with the lawsuits when they come. That was Donald Trump's strategy. I'm going to draw a parallel. You're right. The Guardian did talk explicitly about how Donald Trump had this virus, knew he had the virus, and could give a wit. He infected all sorts of people, including his buddy Chris Christie, who by the way was in the hospital and fighting for his life. You know, COVID Donnie was no different than Tyford Mary. And in the end, Tyford Mary went to jail because she didn't care who she infected. And the only reason she went to jail is because she infected a bunch of rich people, and that was the end of it. So, you know, when's enough is enough. And I'm going to wrap it up by saying now is enough. So get tough America get tough with the administration. And if you're worried about First Amendment violations and lawsuits. Fine, deal with those let them go work their way up to the Supreme Court, but stop Fox and friends. And all the other social medias from spreading misinformation about vaccines and this new variant. It's we've had enough and do the right thing. But how do you really feel. Got it. How do you really feel what are your final thoughts. I knew it in a light. Just repeating the same take personal responsibility where you can try and hold our elected officials accountable for best public health practices. It's all we can do. But at the end of the day, educating ourselves and our loved ones and those that we care about as best as we can to reality as we best understand it and trying to reach those that are until now afraid or confused or just wrong. And as new information comes available, share it. Be kind to others. That's the way you're going to get to them. It's not going to be shouting at them and telling them they're stupid and wrong or evil or bad. It's a lunch if they switch off Instagram, TikTok and Facebook for a week, you know, give them 100 bucks. I don't know. All right, we have to wrap it up. Thank you for a strong discussion with with rich that's rich in suggestions, recommendations and must do is and fed up nest very helpful to us for understanding better the impact of the homicron variant on on top of what we're already enduring from the other versions of the virus. So thank you, Jay, find out Tim Apachella and Winston Welch for this discussion. And I'm your host Stephanie stole Dalton. And this is politics for the people and we'll be here next week Thursday, same time. Hello.