Just a lengthy quote I transcribed from the words of Molly Wood that I found myself slapping the steering wheel to in agreement. (Obviously, since this is my transcript so the way I chose to convey her verbal emphases into text are my own interpretation.) I went ahead an highlighted the parts that made me exclaim affirmations. The darker the purple, the louder my agreement was.
Molly: I am going to go into fraught waters...I was listening to how Catherine Rampell talk about how we would all be handling this so much better if we knew that there was a plan, if we had some managed expectations about how things should last. And so, [the item I bring for discussion today] is kind of best summed up by this LA Times column that calls for opening. And actually it's interesting because this seems to be in the zeitgeist today, calls for starting a nuanced conversation about what comes next. With respect to not necessarily re-opening, in fact I loved that the LA Times opinion piece said, 'We need to start revising our shut-down rules.' Like, we need to start having a nuanced--
Kai: That's good. That's good. That's good, cuz I'm--yep. I'm so sick and tired of this whole 're-opening' thing.
Molly: And, unfortunately, and, I mean, to the detriment of every freaking one of us, the conversation about how we do this has become politicized. Which like, I told our shared boss, Deb Clark, today that my goal on this show in order to stay smart is to try to 'walk on by the stupid.' So that's what I'm going to attempt to do today. The fact that that conversation has gotten politicized is dangerous to all of us. However, we should start to have a nuanced conversation about how we revise our approach to shut-down with the knowledge that we can't do it forever. It's not good for the economy to do it forever. And, and I think this is like, ugh, I've been thinking about this a lot because of our conversations about valuing human life: one thing we may have lost sight of in our conversation is that flattening the curve was never about nobody getting sick. Like, we have a virus, loose in the world, that there's no herd immunity to, and no vaccine for. And that situation is going to last a long time. And people are going to get sick. In fact the goal, all along, was to make sure that people got sick in a manageable way. And that now, we have to face the reality that we're going to have to baby-step into more of us getting sick. And that we're going to kind of have to, because short-term, herd immunity is our only defense. And that the problem with the stupid at this point is that to even have that conversation has gotten so crazy fraught. Like as soon as you say it, then it's like you're a genocidal maniac, or a crazy protester, and if you don't say it, then you're just ignoring the reality on the ground, which is that people cannot keep doing this. And, that frankly, and this is like, there was a Boston Globe piece from earlier this month that said if we keep, like, locked down to this extent, that then the second wave will be even stronger and faster. So, uh-huh.
Kai: ...What did you make of Catherine's thing on the show this afternoon about how we, media and also politicians-- but you have to discount them because, come on-- need to do a better job making people understand what's at stake here?
Molly: Yeah, I mean, at every level, the media needs to pull out of its death spiral with the president and start doing some better work, which I hope is what we do right now. Which is like, listen, we're not doing anybody any favors, if we report on the 'sides' as opposed to the reality. The reality is look, a lot of people are going to get sick across the world. A lot of people have to get sick, right, like that's just the reality. And it is going to take us a very long time. And if you want the real talk, and that's kind of weirdly what I was thinking when I put these in here, is like, you know what pour yourself a drink, it's time for the real poop, because this is going to last a long time...Like you know, we're going to have to creep forward, and then we're going to have to pull back, and then we're going to have to creep forward. And we're taking about years of this. And so anybody who is telling you otherwise, or turning it into a fight to try to distract you, is doing you a disservice...
Then Kai shares the make me smile from The New Yorker:
Kai: It's meta on so many levels.
