 Welcome back. This is Jay Fidel on Think Tech, and we're talking about Coronaville. What next? And Stephanie Dalton joins me. Our other regulars are unavailable today, so it's Stephanie and me alone at last, Stephanie. Aloha, Jay. Yes, aloha. Well, we're going to talk about what Trump has done or not done over the past week and try to get a beat on what's going on with coronavirus. I guess the biggest thing is we have spikes in at least half a dozen states, maybe more or maybe like 20 states, and they're all shooting up worse than before. And so this is a real problem around the country. And of course, it's a Trump problem because he's been blowing off coronavirus since the early times. And in fact, it looked like he disbanded the task force that he created. And now we're paying for that, the whole country's paying for that. He's had terrible policies on everything. And the polls show that nobody feels that he's done a good job in dealing with coronavirus. So here we are, no therapeutics, no vaccine. The country is divided. There are people that are anti-social distancing, libertarian thing, civil liberties thing, what have you. There are even lawsuits on that. And they don't want to wear masks either, and they take every risky chance in the world going to crowds and engaging in close social contact and not wearing masks, not taking any precautions at all. And PS, you know, the rally a week ago in Tulsa was one of those examples of people going into crowds. The demonstrations over Black Lives Matter demonstrations probably didn't help because they were all shouting, talking, singing, what have you, spraying droplets all over everybody and the virus had an effect. So what you have is in several American cities, you have this huge uptick in the number of cases and soon enough the number of deaths and we're also approaching a situation where our hospital resources are being overtaxed. Some cities have gone beyond 100% occupancy of hospital beds for that reason. So you know, here we are, Stephanie, I guess you can't say this was unpredictable. To me, as soon as he got up there and said, we're back, we're done, we've conquered the thing, we won the ball game, I said, whoa, there's no evidence of that and as we know, Trump lies all the time. So he was lying that day and the certain number of people in the country, you know, accepted that. He's based for sure because they accept everything and now we have a real situation where cases are going up. In many places, the reopening is still happening. They haven't got the message yet. In other places, the reopening is not happening and they're trying to, you know, get back to a lockdown. But that's not easy. What you have, may I say, we've had this discussion before, is chaos. It's fragmented. There's no leadership. He's not doing anything. He can't even get his act together about wearing a mask. So you know, it's like complete and ammonium now. So my question to you, if you choose to answer it, it's where are we going? What's next? Where are we on this thing? You know, I don't have a good feeling about this because the cases keep going up, but there's nothing happening to make you feel they're not going to keep going up tomorrow, the day after or the week after that. Certainly a terrifying condition that we're in and especially when yesterday he said the same thing again, that it was going to go away. So I heard commenters say when I saw it on TV that that must be an old tape. He said that before that it was going away, that that's his fantasy, but it was an actual tape from yesterday. He still thinks it's going to go away. So yes, we're in terrible distress here and I think Dr. Fauci communicates it well when he gives us the six figures and the way of the infection that's coming to hundreds of thousands and I mean, even, I mean, I'm hearing something like 100,000 a day. And I mean, that sounds outlandish, but then when you realize we're up to 50,000 cases as of yesterday, 50,000 cases for the first time in the U.S. on it on yesterday day, the day. That's what I'm trying to absorb, the terrible drama of this and the crisis that we're in. So the other figures that I heard discussed had to do with the seven day average of state improvement or state clearing versus the 14 day average and evidently the seven day average of data was hair-raising enough. But the 14 day average of state data has 43 states with increases in cases of huge numbers like 82 percent. So we're talking 43 states and so that now that I guess they're getting better and better data, you know, every day as they get it in and of course nobody's required to report it, but, you know, the CDC is still doing its collection. So when Dr. Fauci says 100,000 a day, that is chilling. But it's realistic. I don't think he's kidding. And Trump is really not helping at all. You know, he made a joke. He said, well, what he said last weekend was he was going to cut out the testing because if you cut out the testing there, you'd know about future cases. It's like put your head in the sand, it's painting the grass green so everybody is impressed. But it's false. It's the alternative, you know, truth thing. Okay, then, okay, his staff said, no, no, no, he was joking. It's just a joke. He was only kidding. I don't believe anything his staff says. Including the woman who appears, you know, as his press secretary there. The Harvard Law School product. McEnany was it, you know, I don't believe a word she says, she's just like the rest of them. It doesn't care that some of these out there with their brand. I really wonder when there's going to be more reactions. Same thing with the attorney general. At least George Washington Law School has sent him a letter like, knock it off. This is totally out of line. Yeah, it's true. Letters don't help with him. He just blows them off. Anyway, so, so, so that all his staff came around and said, oh no, he was just joking, joking, joking, joking. He didn't mean that. He's not going to cut back on the testing. Day after that, he did cut back on the testing. So I guess it wasn't a joke after all. So, you know, again, for the proposition that if you don't test, you won't find the cases. He wants to ignore the cases. This is plurile. It's something a six-year-old kid might think of doing. Hide your head in the sand. Meanwhile, he's not really doing anything in terms of getting the states together. They don't have a combined platform or protocol or way of doing things. We're still short ventilators and that's going to come up big time as we reach 100 percent of hospital use. And more cases that require ventilators. He's got no combined effort going on on the medicine. I just, it's like he's not home. Some people think that he's kind of, he's AWOL. I saw that term used in one article. He's AWOL. He's turning his back on the whole thing. He realizes what a bad job he did. He realized that people have caught him this way. It's going to affect his election. So he's like turning his back on it and no longer involved. He's not doing anything. And so it's even worse. It's not making mistakes. He's doing nothing at all. This is a big problem. This is after messing it up big time. I think the label that Bolton gave that, which I thought was interesting in his interviews, he quote turns a blind eye, unquote, to, to that, which he does not care to attend to. That's your point about the AWOL. Yeah. The turn a blind eye according to Bolton. So he leaves this to individual governors and mayors who don't always agree with the governors. I mean, really, there's so much contention, divisiveness he has created, it's a complete absence of leadership. And what do you have when you have a complete absence of leadership? Well, the thing rages. And the US, you know, we've already been the world leader in cases proportionately, I guess. But I think it's going to get way worse. And I guess I'm happy to be in Hawaii, but I really want David E. Gay to protect me. Because if we have too many tourists coming in, if we don't have enough controls on them, we're going to have the same kind of spikes and this is going to be the same kind of risky business here as it is in other states. Then I mentioned to you that in Arizona, population 7 billion, a million people, there were something like 4,800 cases a couple of days ago, 4,800 cases in all of Europe, which is 446 million, which is, you know, one and a half times the size of the US. There were 3,800 cases, 3,800 cases in Europe, all of Europe, 440 million, as opposed to Arizona, 4,800 as opposed to 7 million in the population of the state. What I'm telling you is that we got terrible, terrible numbers and they're getting worse all the time. Well, Jay, I find it astounding and I try to absorb all of that. I know it's hard for us to get at one with it and be active in thinking about how to deal with it, but nobody is talking much about the president doesn't wear a mask or the president does wear a mask, but nobody talks about he doesn't have to wear a mask because he's standing there with a team of doctors behind him. It's like the emperor. He's totally protected from everything that could possibly get to him, as we saw at the Oklahoma rally where he had somebody quote up on the stage and they were like 50 feet over at the end of the stage, not getting anywhere near him. But this is I think a real, this is disloyalty to inauthent, what is it, lack of transparency to the citizens because yes, don't wear a mask only if you want to is our policy. Of course, I may not be seeing wearing the mask, but I am totally protected all the time and checked on and would be immediately taken to the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda to get treated by top doctors. And you are out there doing whatever you want with no resources. Some of you not even any healthcare, which by the way, I'm also trying to cancel that in the Supreme Court. And this is a travesty that's being perpetrated. And this is one of those places where I think that the media could be more nimble and deal with some of these associated issues that people are not aware of. Let's talk about the dog whistle thing for a minute, you know, he doesn't wear the mask. He says, you want to wear the mask, you can wear the mask, but it's not required. And he keeps sending the message, I don't, I don't do it, I don't need to do it. And it's not required. That's dog whistle message. It's a message to his base. It's a message to, you know, all the, the non progressives in the country saying, you know, follow me, I'll show you the way ignore it and fight, fight with those who want you to wear the mask into that. Why do they, they just accept that that's a part of the cult rules. I guess I find antithetical to brains and logic. I mean, why isn't people are falling for that as if he's in any way in jeopardy. He's not in jeopardy. Everybody else is in jeopardy. If you follow Fauci and you follow the spikes, then what you get is whether the governor's and the mayor's locked down the economy again, which I really think they should. The economy is going to get locked down organically. Everybody will be sick. Everybody will be worried. A lot of people now aren't buying into this reopening at all, including here in Hawaii. A lot of people I know, they're not going back. No, I'd rather not have that disease. I'm not going to go back. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to go to the shopping center. I'm not going to go to restaurants or bars. I'm not going to get involved in any crowd, including a family crowd. I'm going to stay here at home where I, where I have some predictable safety. Anytime you go out on the street, you know, you run the risk of getting inundated with, with viral particles. So what I'm, what I'm saying is we're at a point now as I guess Fauci said this, we're out of control. This thing is out of control. And it almost doesn't matter what the governor's or the mayor's or, or Trump does because it will, it will proceed. It will spike. The hospitals will be overrun and the economy will crash. Whether they, whether they have a lockdown or not reopening, lockdown, those terms are almost irrelevant at this point. It's going to be what it's going to be because people are, people have lost their confidence in one system or the other. You can say lockdown. They're going to do that whether you say it or not. You can say reopening. They're not going to reopen. The problem is, and here's the problem. We have no economy and we need, we need food chain. We need, we need to be able to go to the food store. We need medicines for all kinds of, you know, ills and ailments. But how long can that last without an economy? And if you and I sat for a few minutes, we can make a list of all the essential things we need to preserve our life at home. I mean, television, for example, how long can that go on without an economy? If people can't pay for their electric bills or for their subscriptions to televisions or for food, or, you know, all the things, you know, we've been in suspended animation for 90 days now and getting along on the way it was and, and not, you know, if it's non-discretionary things, rather if it's discretionary things, we don't buy them. We're not, we're not consuming the whole consumption economy. It's like stop mid, mid course. So how long can that, I suggest to you that somewhere along the line here, it's, it's going to tear and, and, you know, the, the, the fabric of the country will tear, will no longer be functional to sustain even the people who want to stay at home. So you're saying we're in a process of devolution and that can lead to civil disobedience and the kind of rioting and, and looting that is for, for survival in order to get food. So I, yeah, I, you're painting a picture that could be out there. And that's the kind of thing we need leadership for is to keep us from devolution and civil disobedience in order to survive. So when I saw the Biden presentation this week, he gave us those kinds of messages that sounded very attractive. I want to unify you. I want to pull some experts in, put them on a committee. I want them to get to work, nose on the grindstone and make all these things happen. You're pointing out the states at odds within the intrastate issues are bigger than interstate issues and those with the Fed because you've got your mayor and your governor and they're not all in agreement. That's our system. The system is about diversity. That's what, what's our strength, but it needs the federal overarching to make all that synergy come together for the best outcome. That's what we're waiting for. You think, you think we can get there? I mean, we're, we're in time to keep us. Congress, Congress is inert. Congress isn't doing anything. The courts, the courts, you know, belong to Trump too. Okay. So question, do you think Trump is doing the reckless behavior, this reckless behavior on person? We had 50,000, we had 50,000. I guess this person means in cases in the country in one day that is remarkable. So yeah, let's, let's thank you for that question. Let's, let's investigate that. Let's, let's, let's say hypothetically that he's doing this purposely. There's a madness about, as a method about his madness. What would it be? What would it be except to provoke us, create chaos and wreck the country? I mean, what, what else could it be that would serve his interest? Well, I think there's been a lot of discussion as to his skills at plain three-dimensional chess, which are not very well respected. In fact, there's questions about a good checker's game, how that would work out even with the strategies and his ability to move around those, those dynamics. So I think that he is not doing it on purpose because I don't think he can do it on purpose. I think we just don't have enough capacity in this man who is surprisingly in a leadership position. He cannot bring us any more than we've already got. I agree with you totally. I don't think he's competent. Some, some say he's less competent all the time. You know, there are, there are people among his base who, who kind of, you know, harbor this wish that maybe he will be better. And I think we all did at one point I said, well, president, maybe he'll rise to the occasion, rise to the office. It's always a nice aspiration, but that hasn't happened. He's gotten worse because he's pathological. And so, and so, you know, you ask whether, the question is whether this is intentional. I think it's an abdication. He's abdicated his office. He's not the president anymore. In fact, I don't think he ever was the president. It was just Donald Trump in a surprise position of enormous power playing a game, running a reality show and firing people left and right has no understanding nor interest in actually running the country. So the answer to the question that has been posed is no, it's not intentional. And the secondary answer to me is a query, will he make it to election day? He seems to be devolving himself. Look at the pictures. Look at the way he conducts himself. Look at the rambling speeches. All these things show you somebody who is not really competent and who was getting less competent all the time. But we have another question. When, this is completely unrelated, but let's address it. We appreciate every question. When does the 14-day quarantine get lifted in Hawaii? Right now it's at the end of July, isn't it? Yeah, well, I may be sooner. I think that that is in contention. And I don't quite understand all the issues, but on some of the ThinkTech programs, those topics come up because there's a concern about why have any more people come in here. And if they do come in here, who's gonna monitor them for their, I know that they're working on some strategies for getting people bracelets or something that they can be tracked if they leave the hotel room. But slowly I've heard from people on the mainland that people who are planning to travel here are finally getting it. Well, no, I don't wanna be in my hotel room. No, I don't wanna have the food delivered to my room in Hawaii. They realize that it's serious. That evidently we're getting a reputation back there among these few people I talk to that Hawaii's really strict and really working hard to keep the virus out. Yeah, well, in other words, there is a lawsuit in the federal court here questioning, trying to set aside David E. Gay's 14-day quarantine for people coming from the mainland. And the story was last week or late the week before that William Barr, Department of Justice Attorney General had instructed the US Attorney here to take the position of speaking in that lawsuit and supporting the proposition that the 14-day quarantine should be set aside as unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause, whatever the argument is. And I find that very interesting because again, that's Trump, William Barr and Donald Trump are the same person and Barr does whatever Trump wants and right down to 99.9. So then what came up was that David E. Gay was gonna make a bifurcated solution to this. You could either take the 14-day quarantine, which I totally agree with you, it's unenforceable. Nobody's gonna listen to that. They're gonna come here and cheat and the police can arrest one out of a hundred people who doesn't, but they're gonna come here and cheat. And the alternative is you could be tested on the mainland and if you passed a test, if you found not infected, then you can come. So it was either or. And I think that was done in response to the DOJ's position as expressed in that federal court suit. So maybe that deflects the possibility that 14-day quarantine will be set aside because now you have an alternative. You don't have to go through the quarantine if you satisfy the other condition. I don't know the status of it, but that's in play right now. And then there's also issues of how long are David E. Gay's executive orders in play? When do those get changed? And how long can he make them for? And where is the legislature? Are they still out? When are they coming back? So there are a lot of questions. Well, they're busy and they just gave 150 million dollars to union workers who actually have been at home, many of them have been at home getting paid. Now they got a raise for being at home getting paid. And that was what the legislature did a few days ago, which I thought was really extraordinary at a time when we have a $2.3 billion shortfall and we won't be able to balance the budget and nobody has suggested how. So I think we have a real problem here in terms of state funding because a lot of businesses that used to pay taxes can't, right? So then the state doesn't have those tax revenues. So where does the state get its money? This session, this three-week special add-on part of the session we're in right now, I think it's over next week. This session has been spending money but not making money and this is really a problem. I don't know where we're gonna go in terms of the state fiscal policy, but right now it looks like we're in the tank on this and there's no way out. Well, City County is certainly in the tank and they are down way down. And so what do they have to get money? They're gonna deal with the state, the new mayor is gonna have to be a master negotiator and read the art of the deal by our good president to find out how you are a winner. You're gonna go, maybe that's why their property taxes are going sky high. Well, that's the thing, you know, you read about all these draconian watch television about all these draconian things and terrible awful things that are happening on the mainland, both sides of the equation. And you say, ah, lucky you live in Hawaii, this doesn't affect Hawaii, we don't have this problem. Well, if you knock off the 14 day quarantine and tourists come here without any control, what do you think is gonna happen? What do you think is gonna happen? We're gonna have a huge spike and the luxury of being protected so far, you and me and everybody we know it's gonna be a great jeopardy. Just don't have another question. Okay, here we go. Thank you to the viewer who asked this question. We sustained through the Great Depression, which was not all peaceful, your point, Stephanie. We go through with the WPA, the Works Progress Administration and the CCC, the Conservation Corps under FDR and other federal programs. What would be a 21st century equivalent of the WPA, the Works Progress Administration and the Conservation Corps, all that, all those FDR programs? So yeah, what should we do? You know, one thing that's worth mentioning is that the Democrats in Congress have suggested that we give a tax credit, such if it means anything anymore, a tax credit to people who wanna take vacations in the country. If you wanna go for a road trip or something, you can deduct the cost. This isn't gonna pass the Senate, I don't think, but this is a bright idea by the Democrats in the House. So it's probably gonna work because we're being locked out of it. Well, it doesn't make you safer, but at least it helps the economy. No, but what about the Conservation Corps? What about the WPA? You know, to me, I mean, I think the questioner is right on the mark. This is exactly what we should be doing. Remember infrastructure, Donald Trump promised he was gonna fix the infrastructure. But he hasn't done jack about that. And the infrastructure is worse yet now, three, four years later. So what we really need to do is get people employed, get them paid, get the infrastructure fixed, all that stuff. So I don't think there's a difference between the 21st century and the 20th century under FDR. We should do exactly what FDR did in terms of building infrastructure and getting people employed. Well, this is part of the leadership issue because there are people working on these. We have the America Corps kind of thing. They've talked about setting up so that they could use all these people in to do the tracking, the identifying and tracking and following up people that's very time consuming. And as we go to this many cases, it's gonna require more and more people to work on it. So others have already thought about this and got some structures in place, organized their plans, and there's no tankers. There's nobody, just no leadership that can bring that to fruition. That's all that's needed. The vice president could do that. The president could. Sure, sure. And Congress should be able to agree on it, but you notice that this question is like, it's like a special new brand new question. And the point is that the government, nobody has said boo about programs like this. Nobody, the questioner, whoever it is should run for office, you know. And look at all the kids out of school. I mean, there could be all kinds of wonderful benefits from working with a WPA CCC in the 21st century. I'm sure we could generate a whole bunch of ideas and names to move it in the direction that we would like to see. Well, one thing it interests me is that closer to home in terms of dealing with the coronavirus is we need trackers, tracers. We need testing too, because following lumps, repeated lie that anyone can get testing. That's simply not true. Anybody believes that ought to have is, ought to get tested. You know what I mean? Different kind of tests. So what we have is hopefully better testing. And there are people working in that. We've interviewed some of them. But then when you get a test, you have to go trace. The test in itself only tells you if you're sick and then you should amelon down to the hospital or at least talk to your doctor. But what about tracing and putting out the hotspots? In order to do that, you have to trace. Well, we don't have tracers, nor do we have a system for tracers, nor do we have a system for training tracers. And I know that people have talked about it, but it is not in place. Because after all, too, you're making the point that once you get the test, that means you don't have it. But from that minute on, you can get it. So the problem is, is giving the people the test and getting a positive, then you've got to get those tracers tracers out there right away. Because if eight days go by before you get the results, it's over for finding anybody and it's already been spread so far. So you're bringing up, there's a very important task and it's very complicated, but we have plenty of people that would like to do that. Whoever out of work would be only too happy to do it because all they got to do is sit on the telephone usually. They don't even have to go out in the field. They just have to be relatable and conversational and call people up or somehow connect with them, but maybe by other means, and find out who they've been talking to and who they spend their time with and then make a chart. And this is really critical. Now, one of the things I believe that Fauci is saying or implying is that, A, as your point, you have to test over and over again. If you got tested back in February or March, it doesn't mean anything now because you could have got virus any day along the way, any hour of any day. And so we have to test again and again. And when the administration says, oh, we tested X millions of people, they're in a way, they're lying on that because you got to test all the time again and again. And we're not doing that at all. But let's assume we have to test it. Let's assume we can belly up to that. Then you've got to do tracing if you're going to put out the hotspots. Then you find a case and then you put it in the tracing system. And further to the question that was posed, we could use people who would otherwise be WPA or the conservation court and have them do the tracing. In fact, next week, Stephanie, we're having a show on exactly how you trace. What does a tracing person do? And what's the payload of that? And what do you do with that data in order to put out the hotspot? Unfortunately, you get to a certain point and you can't because it's proliferated everywhere. And you're spending all your time chasing too many cases. And I think we're getting there. So the whole idea of tracing may be already overtaken by events. Okay, so what do you expect? We're almost out of time. I hate this, because this is a great conversation. Thank you very much, Stephanie. What's your expectation for next week? What surprises and ventures do you see coming next week with respect to coronavirus? I see further numbers that are horrifying, but I know there's much effort and there's much knowledge and smarts out there. And it'll be bubbling up over the coming week. Now, what it may come to explode into, I don't know, but hopefully it will be on the way to making things better. And Biden's gonna be saying things that are informed by experts. And Donald Trump doesn't have anybody informing him or guiding him, but we have Dr. Fauci. So we'll get more information from them and try to get these curves down and maybe get some AmeriCorps action according to as this questioner suggests we do. I just want to get this out of, what worst can happen now? I mean, the only thing is that we keep the children safe. They don't seem to be so affected. So I just want to hope that that piece of it will stay in that virus, won't do any mutations that way. But I think getting the young people sick is gonna help turn this around because they're gonna feel that they're in the game now and they haven't been in the game. So they're hopefully gonna carry the ball for us. Do their part now. Do their part. I mean, a message to all the young people out there. If you get infected, other people get infected and you're not doing the community any good by getting infected, don't take any chances, protect yourself, protect the community. Well, thank you very much, Stephanie. Stephanie Dalton, we really enjoy these conversations. It was so nice being alone with you. I love you. Alana, stay safe. Work for everybody. Thank you.