 We're live. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech. And more specifically, this is Thursday, Coronaville. What's next? You know, there's been a lot of talk about how people are getting tired of all this, and they're sort of backing away from it. They don't want to engage anymore. They're sick and tired of watching the news. It's so depressing. And here we are getting close to the election. You wonder what effect that has on whether people actually are going to vote. At the same time, you know, they get tired of all the confusion about corona. And we really have to keep going on this. We have to keep studying it because it is happening, whether it's on the news or not, it is happening. And one of the most remarkable discussions that I've heard recently was Rachel Maddow's response to Trump's repeated suggestion that he's going to wait on what is it? He called it herd mentality. Really, he means herd immunity. She made fun of him for that. But, you know, he seems to be adopting a policy of herd immunity, which is, you know, incredible. So last night, remarkable discussion by Rachel Maddow. What do you think, Tim? What does she say and how did it affect you? Good morning, Jay. The numbers presented for herd immunity is disgusting. That this administration may be even considering some type of approach to herd immunity because you take the population of 330 million Americans and you figure that you need somewhere between 65% to 70% to obtain some sort of herd immunity. And then you look at that number and that's about 214 million. And then you take the average death rate that we've experienced with COVID-19, which is 2.97%. Again, you look at all the cases and then divide that by the number of deaths into that number. You come up with 2.97%. Then you take the 214 million times that 2.97, and you come up with over 2 million deaths. Donald Trump said at the town meeting with George Stephanopoulos that COVID-19 is going to go away with or without a vaccine, and that's because it's just going to happen. And what he's referring to is his herd, well, he called herd mentality, but herd immunity is what he really meant. And to contemplate 2 million deaths of Americans, just because Donald Trump decided he didn't want to address this in February, is astronomical. And he's relying on the advice and counsel of Dr. Scott Atlas, who is a radiologist and certainly is not well steeped in the nature of viruses and how to conquer a virus. So I find it deplorable as usual about what comes out of the administration and it needs to stop. We need to go to tried and methodologies of preventing this virus from further spread, mass, contact tracing, social distance separations, these things that we already know will work. In fact, Dr. Redfield last night said, hey, the tried and chew method is wear a mask. If 95% of the population wore a mask, this virus would die out. Yeah, then he backtracked when Trump started attacking him. Trump attacked him for that statement. And then he backtracked. But going to going to Rachel Maddow's analysis, as I recall, she had something in the order of 6 million deaths without any amelioration. And she had with amelioration of some kind, a more optimistic view of it is closer to one or two million. And the remarkable thing is that both of these analysis, they're not pie in the sky. They're real numbers based on what's really happening right now, including multiplication factors of the number of people who die after the number of people get sick. So this is not making it up. This is the parameters of what is likely to happen with his new policy. It seems to be a new policy somewhere between 6 million, which is the number of people who were killed in the Holocaust intentionally in Germany. And one or two million, which is more than we've lost in all the wars the country has ever fought way more, way more, which is not actually that far off from what are we at now, 200,000. So it's going fast. And I think essentially he's acknowledging he doesn't really have a plan. He'll just let nature take its course, like they did in Sweden. But actually, Cynthia, what happened in Sweden? Did it really work fine in Sweden? No, it did not work out well at all for them. They've had all kinds of trouble. They've had lots of deaths. They've had surging cases. So obviously, if we're going to follow that sort of example, it shows us don't do it. Make a different plan. Yeah, well, they changed it in Sweden because they couldn't tolerate all the deaths. You know, I find it amazing. I mean, if we if we stopped the show right now and started a count to 200,000, that's the number of deaths already. We'd be counting for weeks. Three of us as fast as we could. Not even giving names, just counting. And if you try to go to say, what was it, the high end, $6 million, how long would it take for us to count to that? But he doesn't seem to talk about that. He just says anything in order to defer the issue. I mean, so what happened, Stephanie, something we've talked about before, what happened with, you know, Robert, what's his name, the book Recently Rage? Woodward. Woodward's book, I mean, Woodward said that Trump knew and he said he knew that this was a very threatening pandemic. And then he took steps on the other side to confuse everybody. Where are we on that? I mean, have we have we gotten to a better time when he's not confusing us? Or does the confusion continue? And how should we treat these statements, for example, about herd immunity or mentality, whatever? We should have learned when he said Mexico was going to pay for the wall. It all, it all stands on that one little point. You can just put the compass point right there. And that was where we laughed. And we thought that's ridiculous, but had no idea that this was the foundation for continuing comments by him. But one of the things with what you said about the viruses, I'm appalled that nobody, everybody's saying, deaths will have 2 million deaths. Well, what about the 70% of the 330 million that have to be sick? And when you get this, no matter what age, you're going to be sick for three weeks or a month. So I mean, nobody's factoring in the fact that even if we did want to try herd immunity, we would not just have death, but we would have the nation down for a month for each person that did it. And that would be even more millions. Yeah, what about the hospitals? What about the hospitals? What about the healthcare workers? What about the discombobulation to the economy? I mean, he didn't seem to mention any of that. No, it's a whole, the middle piece, the whole body of it is undigested and uncriticized. And where's the media on that? So I'm just appalled at some of these gaps. I guess people are just so worn out. But he's also, with Woodward, he was just trying to find out what was going to impress Mr. Woodward. So like he said, he went into that with no advice from his advisors. He just went into the foxes den and decided to dance around and be cute self say things and get him to get the person to see him as important and saying things. And he said all the wrong things. And certainly the question really is, how does this play to him between his herd immunity policy? And he's mentioned it a number of times. It isn't just a one off mistake. It's a policy in his mind. And we've seen before, like with the post office, where he mentions it and mentions it and then you see him taking action either behind his back or right in your face to implement a crazy policy. So he's talking about the warp speed vaccine. So what do you get from that? First is, is it really a warp speed? What is he doing? This is the title of the show. What in fact is he doing about COVID? What is he doing about warp speed? How do you make warp speed? And do we really have a vaccine? Because it seems to me the medical community has divided on it and divided as a kind word. In fact, most of the medical community says you got to be out of your mind. There is no such thing as warp speed vaccine. But where are we on that? And this is the second part of my question. How does that play with herd immunity? Which one? Which one is up? Which one? Which is the flavor of the day? And how do they compare? And what's the average Joe on the street supposed to think? The soup de jour. Yeah, good question, Jay. Just a few points. I want to tackle your question, but I just want to make a couple points on the last, the last question you've been asking us. And that is, the administration has embedded an eyelash about the University of Washington's projection about 410,000 deaths, 410,000 deaths between now and January 1st, 2021. Not an eyelash has been battered about it. In fact, University of Washington has been pretty close to some of these projections of the past. I mean, we're at 200,000 right now. And that's not too far off from where they were estimating back in February. Number two is, to Stephanie's point on the herd immunity concept, what about the 17% of people who are going to get sick? We don't know enough about this novel coronavirus to say, what are the lingering effects, health effects, that we're going to, those people are going to experience, they got sick with it. And what's the cost to the healthcare system if they have lingering elements for years? But let me add that it's not clear to the, you know, the professionals and the scientists that you, that you are immune from. That's correct. The operative word is immune. And after you have it, you can have it twice, which means the whole theory fails. We had a person in Hong Kong, we had the gentleman who caught it for the second time in Nevada. And the second time he caught it, he had to go for oxygen therapy. He didn't go for a ventilator, but he was in serious trouble the second time around. So yeah, this concept that once you get it, you have your immunity to it. And they don't think that's the case just yet. So to get to your question, though, is what is the operation warp speed on the vaccine? Well, Jay, you know, and I know it's a campaign slogan. That's all it was. We knew back in February when we did our interview that Donald Trump said, we're going to have a vaccine within a month or two. And Dr. Fauci back in February said early March said, no, it's going to take 12 to 18 months. And Donald Trump never has never accepted that reality. Dr. Redfield got in trouble yesterday for, you know, suggesting the exact same thing. And Donald Trump uses this merely as a campaign slogan to try to make things look better and make sure the stock market doesn't just, you know, become disruptive. And so he needs his 50 days before election day. It's, it's, you know, what can I say, it's outrageous. It's outrageous. I've never seen, never seen Rachel Maddow so excited about this. I mean, how can you blow off six million lives or two million lives, whatever her range of numbers were. I keep thinking of it. We should dedicate a show. It comes on once a day, maybe, and somebody sits there straight faced and just reads numbers. The show would be on for months, just reading the numbers. Nobody realizes the magnitude of this. But Cynthia, you know, you do have, when you do herd immunity, in fact, what's happening now, herd immunity or otherwise, you have a huge effect on the economy. Can you talk about that? Can you talk about where we are in terms of the economy? Because, because it's not only is he talking about certain things like herd immunity or warp speed vaccines that nobody really believes. He's also encouraging people not to wear masks. He's encouraging people not to respect social distancing. And this is going to create, you know, a thousand deaths a day, every day, and tens of thousands of cases. And that ultimately is going to have a profound effect on the economy. Can you talk about it? Of course it will. First, I'd like to say that I kind of think maybe it was a Freudian slip when he said herd mentality, when you looked at all of his supporters behind him, and the herd mentality that it takes to keep them in his base because it does. And you know, I think something that's really important is William Barr was on and being interviewed, and he compared the lockdown. He called it a national lockdown, which we've never even had anyway. But he said that he compared the lockdown to house arrest and slavery, which just, I mean, I literally had to sit down when I heard him say it. I thought, how can you possibly make that question? He said it was the greatest intrusion on civil rights in history, or in civil liberties, excuse me, in history, in the history of our nation. And I just thought, you have got to be kidding me. This isn't about taking your right to, you know, speak or go to church or just take any of those. This is strictly do something that will save your fellow man. And that just bored me. Sorry to just go off on a tangent from, but the economy, of course, will suffer greatly. Small businesses especially will go down. And some of the large corporations might be able to make it through this because, of course, he keeps feeding them money. So they might make it, but the small little guys, those are the ones that are going to be hurt the most. Yeah, at the same time, to talk about that, Congress seems to be locked up on giving any money to the people who are about to go into the street and starve. Well, have you seen what the Republican stuff is, has in it, has all these extra things in it, trying to get, like he has done from the beginning, if he has a bill and then at the last minute, they stashed something else in the background of it. And that's what's happening now. And that's why the Democrats are standing so firm. You know, they want oversight this time. And not oversight that Donald Trump can at the last minute say, oh, I'm going to be the oversight. You know, they want real oversight. And so I think that's an important factor that I know that a lot of times the Democrats are being vilified. Nancy Pelosi is being vilified for not signing this because people need it. The problem is they get very little, and there's no real guarantee that they're going to get it anyway, because it might just go to the big corporations. So I think some people firmly believe that at the end of this, with the machinations that are going to take place around the election, we're going to have violence in the streets. But that's accelerated by the fact that by that time, no matter what the rhetoric is from the White House or the Republicans, they're people going to be hungry. You can't have a government that makes people hungry. And I don't have any confidence personally that this is going to stay, you know, safe. But let's turn to the state because the state also has a huge big economic problem, the hotels. And we seem to be thrashing around. We talked about this tangentially last time. We seem to be thrashing around. And now David E. Gay has announced that he's going to do pre-testing, pre-arrival testing starting in the middle of October. Stephanie, is that going to work? Well, for one thing, anything that takes the cost off the state, I mean, having it at the door of the plane when you get off, which I don't think they've ever really done, having people get their own test somewhere else and then get on the plane and come here, at least there is some sense to, you know, getting that cost shifted over to wherever they're coming from. So I mean, I think the delay is, you know, very disappointing, but I'm not sure what the numbers are right now here. But I want to support them doing now what they should have done in March, which is actually get this drawbridge up because we're also going to get some more court action. And on this interstate commerce business might, you know, knock us out of our perch for that. And then there's also a lawsuit about that the government has no right to shut anything down so that the government cannot say go get off the street or go home or no, no more than that that has actually been okayed by not the Supreme Court, but a lower court. And so that's going to move on up. So that means nobody can tell anybody anything because I guess we would want to avoid slavery. Well, you think that people in Hawaii would be respectful of the law and respectful of the rights and health of their neighbors, but that may not be the case. The police have already made 44,000 citations. Great. This is good news that they should have done that. But what that tells you is that 44,000 people have snubbed their noses. That's right. This is not being respectful. Because there were consequences. And the other thing is, why is the Honolulu police doing that? The hotels should be paying for that and making sure those people are under quarantine. And they do that because that's cost in the city money it doesn't have to be down there giving 44,000 citations. How much did that cost? Who's going to pay for that? We're going to run out of police funds for stuff that applies to the people here, the residents. So Tim, is this working? How would you characterize the efforts of the state in dealing with COVID and more specifically in dealing with the failure, the abject failure of our economy? Well, we looked at the tail end of the problem and that is the non-compliance of the mayor's ordinance, the governor's new set of laws. And don't make a law, don't make an ordinance, don't make any kind of executive order if you don't have the power and the manpower to implement it, to enforce it. And I saw day in and day out all over Waikiki, you know, beach parties taking place under the onnings and, you know, bars and kakaaka were cramped packed with patrons, nose to nose, no masks to be worn. And I saw it all from the time that things opened up. And I knew right then and there that we were going to go back to a shutdown because the virus doesn't care about politics, of course, and that's just what going to happen. But, you know, blame, if you're going to blame someone, don't blame the people, you know, don't don't punish the entire state as a whole when we have a problem with the few. And the few could have been handled very easily by by stricter enforcement. Is this that simple? And now we're all paying an economic price further. All the businesses have been shuttered back down again. Some and many of them probably won't come back. And that I think that's a tragic statement that if you're going to, like I said, if you're going to put forth a law, then enforce it and make sure it sticks. Yeah, Cynthia, you know, it seems to me that our society here in Hawaii, to say nothing about the mainland is being changed. That we sit and watch and read the paper and you figure out what our leaders are. Well, people who pretend to be our leaders are doing or not doing. But but while we do that, everything around us is changing. Waikiki is a, you know, is a haunted, haunted neighborhood. Our economy is even according to you hero at university is down in the pits and it's going to stay in the pits. When we come out again, which that's that's the way I look at it anyway. What are we going to find here? Is this what does the state going to look like in six months or a year, assuming we do that well? Well, one bright spot is that places like Hanama Bay have the best water conditions that they've had in a decade or more, which is a good thing. So we know that people aren't polluting the waters as much as they were, and they're not destroying the trails and and backcountry stuff. And and you know, I live over here on the countryside here, where I'm windward side and going towards North Shore. I don't ever see anybody without a mask when I go out to the little stores or anywhere. Well, I mean, right now everybody's locked down. But in this meantime, when we were open, out here on this side, there's a different mentality. I wonder we have a lot more local folks that live a lot more Hawaiians that live over here on this side. And like you said, they are more respectful. They do care. And I'm not to disparage how these because I have white skin, but I have breasts, so I'm okay. But you know, in town, maybe there's a difference of an attitude. So I wonder, we know that in the cities on the mainland, have a different attitude than the people out in the country. So maybe that's sort of the case here on the islands too, I'm not sure. You know, we think of ourselves differently in terms of racial relations in terms of respect for the law and all that. But you know, we're not that different from some places on the mainland. And if you look at the whole mainland, and you look at the rhetoric going on, and you look at the confusion, you know, and the lack of understanding about exactly what is happening to us. We're not really not that different. So in the remaining time, we have a couple of three minutes left to talk. Stephanie, what's going to happen this week? Is there anything good going to happen with COVID, for example? Is there any chance in a million years, at least this week, that Donald Trump is going to do something? Well, the only thing I can imagine him doing is luring or attracting another creepy crawler out from under the rocks to come in and help him run, quote unquote, his government. So I mean, Barr has turned out to be such a disappointment and actual devastation to the Justice Department and all these other people that are making decisions with no medical expertise and this flouting of the experts, right, on television. I mean, it's kind of like, and my observation is that he's kind of like lost, really lost his way. So that are we creeping back up to a point where that is at the 24th amendment that the cabinet could do something. That takes us to the next layer or outer circle, which is all of those people. And what is the threat against them now with less than two months to go? In other words, why did the CDC director rearrange his statement? What was he threatened with? Losing the job? Is that it because you have to leave right away? Or is what is the threat that that Trump has on these people? Somehow Trump has managed to run the government as a sole proprietorship. He makes all decisions, tells people, I don't know. I don't know how that's happened. But that's that's what's happened. And therefore, you know, do we have a chance at beating COVID? It may be that his remarks over Tim is remarks over, you know, herd immunity are will come true, like it or not, because nothing else is is going to happen. And that all he can do in terms of his mission, of course, is to stay in power. But but if he's not going to do anything about COVID, if he's incapable of doing anything about COVID, then his mission is to change the subject and distract us. Is you know, a general prediction coming this week would be, well, what new distractions can we expect from him? Have any any ideas about that, Tim? Well, yeah, I think you could get more bombshell stories coming out about his overt intent to not act with COVID. And maybe he's had all along the idea of herd immunity. Who knows? I just think that at some point, all the governors are going to have to get together and say, I'm going to institute a statewide, you know, directive that mass or mandatory. Let's not wait for a national one. Let's do it on a state by state basis. And let's tackle this so we don't get into the herd immunity death toll that awaits us. Now, regrettably, he bypasses that though. You have a number of states now where the governors are saying wear a mask. But Trump is downplaying that up playing downplaying. I can't I can't figure out what he means when he says up playing down playing, you know, I mean, the confusion is enormous. And, and Cynthia, the one one more point that we really should cover is that none of this seems to be affecting his base. Every time you know, you see these articles about about the outrageous things he's done or hasn't done the outrageous lies that continue and get worse and get worse. And still the base remains loyal. Do we have we ever figured out why? Well, I think it's because they've been programmed intentionally in that mass that herd mentality. I think they don't leave they they've been gaslit so much that they only go by the lies that they've been fed. And they keep such a narrow exposure to any news that they don't really get what's really happening out in the world. All they get is this narrow slice. And, and so, you know, I have a lot of family and friends back in Alabama and live in the south. And I'm always floored by the things that they say. And they're just sort of regurgitating Fox News. And that's all I ever hear from them is this, like I said, this regurgitation of Fox News, you know. And, and then here Trump wants to just blame everybody else for the problems that are happening. When he was asked about the mandate on the George Stephanopoulos interview, instead of addressing it, he says, well, the Democrats said they wanted one. And Joe Biden said he would have one, but they never did institute it. And I thought, it's because he's not the president, you are. And here he is trying to blame it on Biden. And I think, you know, so everything that's wrong is somebody else's fault, which is classic narcissistic behavior and thought process. And then you have this narrow slice of news that, and you know, that's all they're ever subject to. It's a kind of a reality show, isn't it? Well, we had this discussion at nine o'clock about whether to expect violence in the country getting toward the election. You know, and there are certain things that are structural, which we cannot fix, even if Congress was functional. One of them was, is the Second Amendment, which, which actually is an expression of power to have guns is to have power. And the other, of course, is the electoral college and the way the Senate is structured. And what I thought it was interesting is, you know, in response to the question we posed, namely, how can you fix that? Well, David Louis said, you know, it'll take generations because, and you touched on this, Cynthia, is the education of the country has been lacking and still is. And one thing, I don't want to go on too long here, but one, one thing that really struck me was they took a survey of people who, people who believe that the Jews created the Holocaust. And of, of young adults, I think age up to 28, 10% of them, 10% of the people surveyed believed that the Jews created the Holocaust. They had no idea. And so I suggest to you that when you, you know, treat the whole thing as a reality show or a football game, what you're talking about is a complete failure of education. And I don't know how you fix that takes a while. And the base is going to remain educated by Trump. He's their teacher mentor, you know, their Jim Jones, that's the case. Okay, last comments, Tim, what do we have to look for here? Again, more, more bombshell stories coming out, either through Woodward's book or people blowing the whistle on the administration. Yeah. And watch out for that woman who said that he grabbed her and put his tongue down her throat. You'll hear more about that later today. Stephanie, how about you? That we can ignore that because everybody else will be, yeah, the Fox and the other outlets, Limba, are just pumping, pumping, pumping things that I don't even care about anymore, like they're bringing in the, the fired FBI director, they're still on stuff from four years ago. So they're, and then in addition to continuing all of these, these ridiculous. Yeah, right. It's almost like this is 2016 revisited, isn't it? It's like two separate places. So they're gin and up. And that, you know, what's his name from George South Carolina, you know, who was McCain sidekick. And he is such a disappointment. He's just pushing on this because he's judicial committee in the Senate. So we've just got, it's another agenda entirely. By the way, Fox has to read this, rest to reorganize. They're, they're taking 10% of it down because of income or, so watch for that. So some people are going. It won't be Hannity or Ingram, but money rules, money rules. We live in a world of greed and corruption. Okay. You got 30 seconds left. Cynthia, what do you got to say? Be very, very careful because we got to remember caputo just made a statement saying we should shoot Democrat published politicians in the street. He said shoot them dead in the street, I believe was his exact thing that he said. So what you said about the violence, we need to start making plans now to avoid it instead of waiting until it happens. And then reacting to it. I think it's important that we start now planning on how we're going to deal with it because it's going to happen. Yeah, country's changing. Thank you, Tim. Thank you, Stephanie. Thank you, Cynthia. Great to have these discussions. Got to keep on it. And we keep counting. We got to keep counting. Thanks so much. Aloha. Till next week.