Deadline Whitehouse with Nicolle Wallace

Foreign Policy Magazine columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Laurie Garrett breaks down where the country is in its fight against covid, and how to balance both the good and bad news that the American public is hearing.

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Lisa Meadowcroft
How will we deal with the next pandemic?

While most of the world is still grappling with COVID, some countries — mostly wealthy ones with early access to vaccines — are thinking about preparing for the next pandemic. This sentiment ties into a wider debate about health security that was missing when the virus hit us all early last year.

Indeed, we should aspire to ensure the health security of our population instead of waiting for it to get sick, Flagship Pioneering CEO Noubar Afeyan said on June 9, during a live discussion, Stronger Partnerships for a Healthier World: Mutually Assured Protection — the second in GZERO Media's two-part discussion, Beyond the Pandemic: A Radical New Approach to Health Security, presented in partnership with Flagship Pioneering.

That'll only be possible with a level of global cooperation that remains absent even during the current pandemic, noted Eurasia Group and GZERO Media President Ian Bremmer. Right now, we seem to have learned nothing from COVID, he explained, citing the example of the US, which is more interested in investing on the tech that's on your smartphone to compete with China than in a system to help keep Americans safe from the next virus.

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Lisa Meadowcroft
Stopping Drug Patents Has Stopped Pandemics Before

U.S. President Joe Biden’s waiver of patent protections for U.S.-made COVID-19 drugs and vaccines is a historic milestone and a moral imperative. It is also an overdue acknowledgement of recent experiences. Contrary to prognostications from the pharmaceutical sector that side-stepping the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) component of the World Trade Organization (WTO) will mark the death knell of the drug industry, the world’s response to HIV/AIDS long ago demonstrated that patents stymie accessible treatment, cost lives, and offer little bona fide enhancement of innovation. There are challenges that lie ahead—but harm to pharmaceutical companies or future patients who will rely on their productivity do not count among them.

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Lisa Meadowcroft
Rumble with Michael Moore: Ep. 187: It’s Like Herding Americans! How To Defeat COVID This Year (w/ Laurie Garrett)

Michael is joined by public health expert and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Laurie Garrett to discuss the new reports that the United States of America will never reach herd immunity to the coronavirus. President Biden seemed somewhat defeated when he had to announce recently that we will have to settle for 70% getting just one shot by the 4th of July. They discuss how each of us are the most important ambassadors for total vaccination success. If 200,000 Average American citizens who are listening to this podcast each convince 10 people to get their shots — BOOM! Yes, there is a small portion of the American public who will simply refuse to get the vaccine and whom we cannot reach. However, most of the people avoiding vaccination have fears and skepticism — and each of us can help convince them with our support, encouragement, kindness and love. President Biden — don’t give up on us.

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A Tale of Two COVIDS

On the one hand, America's vaccine roll out is making great progress. On the other, in the last week COVID cases are on the rise in 38 states. On the one hand, the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are working remarkably well. On the other hand, Astra Zeneca and perhaps Johnson and Johnson not so much. (Or maybe the government is over-reacting to a very tiny number of problem cases with the J&J vaccine.) On the one hand we know more about the disease. On the other hand it keeps changing and about a third of us just don't want to know the science. Where does this lead? We discuss with Pulitzer Prize-winner Laurie Garrett, former senior Obama health specialist Dr. Kavita Patel and Ryan Goodman of NYU Law School. Also: A special conversation about latest revelations about Trump and Russia and the Biden team's response.

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The Pandemic, One Year On

Here is today’s Foreign Policy brief: Today marks one year since the World Health Organization declared a coronavirus pandemic, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes his first visit to the United Arab Emirates, and Brazil’s Lula makes first political remarks since his corruption case was thrown out. 

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Lisa Meadowcroft
Trump Is Guilty of Pandemicide

At long last, we see glimmers of hope. The COVID-19 epidemic in the United States has fallen below the numbers of daily new cases tallied on the eve of the presidential election, the point at which this viral nightmare soared. Using the New York Times’ coronavirus data tracker, on Nov. 1, 2020, there were 74,195 new cases counted in the country; by Feb. 16, new case reports came in at 64,376.

But in between those dates, a national horror unfolded, peaking on Jan. 8 with 300,619 new cases reported in just 24 hours. This staggering wave, one full year into the pandemic, was completely unnecessary for the world’s richest country. Achieving any sense of closure will require holding Donald Trump accountable for the failure.

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Lisa Meadowcroft
How Bad Will COVID-19 Get?

President-elect Joe Biden's announcement last week that he will introduce a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan couldn't come soon enough, since according to one expert, help is desperately needed now.

When Laurie Garrett appears on television for an interview about the pandemic, I stop whatever it is I’m doing. When I’m going through the newsfeed on my phone, and see Garrett’s name, I stop scrolling. She is just that remarkable.

Laurie GarrettAuthored
She Predicted the Coronavirus. What Does She Foresee Next?

Laurie Garrett, the prophet of this pandemic, expects years of death and “collective rage.”

I told Laurie Garrett that she might as well change her name to Cassandra. Everyone is calling her that anyway.

She and I were Zooming — that’s a verb now, right? — and she pulled out a 2017 book, “Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes.” It notes that Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, was prescient not only about the impact of H.I.V. but also about the emergence and global spread of more contagious pathogens.

“I’m a double Cassandra,” Garrett said.

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Pandemic Lessons, from HIV through COVID-19

Just did a live Columbia U Zoom-cast with three pals – we all go back to the 1980s HIV days, when we bonded around the outrage of witnessing the unfolding pandemic: Bob Bazell (NBC News), Jon Cohen (Science Mag), Wendy Wertheimer (ex-NIH) and I. With Columbia’s Andy Revkin on “Sustain What?”, we talk about the similarities and differences between unfolding HIV/AIDS pandemic and COVID-19.

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В США дали мрачный прогноз по коронавирусу, сравнив его со СПИДом

Если от коронавируса и изобретут вакцину, его все равно не удастся взять под полный контроль до 2025 года.

Об этом сообщила "Апострофу" американская журналистка, автор научно-публицистических статей и книг, лауреат Пулитцеровской премии Лори Гарретт.

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Laurie GarrettQuoted
Waiting is the hardest part

Recommended Reading: I thought Fareed Zakaria was spot on in his Washington Post column about Donald Trump’s re-election strategy and the conundrum within it. ​This reminded me of one of the most instructive books for our time, The Anatomy of Fascism, by Robert Paxton, ​which makes the point that strongmen inevitably burn themselves out once they are elected, because their strength is in fighting government, not being a part of it. Also from the seer of this crisis, Laurie Garrett, a damning piece about the Trump administration’s handling of the Covid emergency.

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Laurie GarrettMention, Quoted