vox--2020-01-24--1917 vividly recreates WWI’s trench warfare. Is that enough to win Best Picture?

Every year , between five and 10 movies compete for the Oscars ’ Best Picture trophy .
It ’ s the most prestigious award that the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences gives out every year , announced right at the end of the ceremony .
And there aren ’ t any set rules about what constitutes a “ best ” picture .
It ’ s the movie — for better or worse , depending on the year — that Hollywood designates as its standard bearer for the current moment .
And so , the film that wins Best @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s view of its accomplishments in the present and its aspirations for the future .
Each year ’ s nominee slate roughly approximates the movies the industry thinks showcase its greatest achievements from the past 12 months .
And one thing that ’ s definitely true about the nine Best Picture nominees from 2019 is that , in tone and theme , they ’ re all over the place .
The most-nominated film overall is also one of the year ’ s most successful commercially , and one of its most controversial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has reached the milestone of becoming that country ’ s first Best Picture and Best International Feature nominee .
There are three historical dramas : one set during World War I , one that centers on a 1966 car race , and one that co-stars an imaginary Hitler .
There ’ s a quietly funny drama about love and divorce and a revisionist history of Hollywood in the summer of 1969 .
The world ’ s arguably most influential living auteur made a gangster epic with eternity on its mind .
And a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rounds out the group .
In the runup to the Oscars on February 9 , the Vox staff is looking at each of the nine Best Picture nominees in turn .
What makes this film appealing to Academy voters ?
What makes it emblematic of the year ?
And should it win ?
Below , Vox film critic Alissa Wilkinson , international security and defense staff writer Alex Ward , and senior correspondent Matt Yglesias discuss 1917 , Sam Mendes ’ s “ one-take ” journey through the trenches of World War I.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1917 , a movie I both admire and find moving , yet also find distracting for some of its filmmaking choices .
But what I realized while watching it was that I admired it for applying innovative techniques to overcome the audience ’ s perception of what a “ war film ” is ( like Christopher Nolan ’ s excellent Dunkirk did ) — and , in so doing , felt like it was actively trying to deflate any Hollywood notions of the “ glory ” of war .
( I ’ m @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the technique it used — I ’ ll get to that later — but I admire the attempt . )
The other thing I realized is that I don ’ t really know a lot about World War I , probably because the movies have historically been so focused on two other wars : World War II and the Vietnam War .
I think you ’ re both far more versed in that than I am .
So as you were watching , what were your first impressions ?
And what did you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The thing to know about World War I , without really getting into the history , is that it was a war of trench warfare .
That led to long periods of waiting in muddy , cold , dark subterranean areas before rushes of attacks where troops would face machine guns and other dangerous weaponry .
I thought 1917 captured both the dreary nature of life in the trenches and the unsettling danger of being outside of them .
The camerawork made me feel like I was the third soldier , seeing every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was waiting for a war movie to make me feel this in a visceral way , and I thought 1917 nailed it .
Matt : Sam Mendes didn ’ t seem too interested in offering historical context to explain what was going on , but I happen to love World War I history ( see Vox ’ s 40 Maps That Explain World War I ) and I think the specific context gives a deeper understanding of some of the artistic choices at work here .
As you can see on this map @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1916 , the German trenches had this kind of weird westward bulge in northern France : That was called the Noyon Salient .
Right before the events of the movie , the Germans constructed a whole secondary series of defensive trenches behind the Salient known as the Hindenburg Line , after one of their top commanders .
Then they executed a quiet strategic withdrawal called Operation Alberich , in which they fell back from the original front to the Hindenburg Line .
The basic idea was that the Hindenburg Line was straighter and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which would free up extra men to go east to fight the Russians and knock them out of the war ( this worked , leading to the Russian Revolution ) .
The Germans deliberately destroyed everything of use in the Salient , and deported most of the able-bodied men to work in war production elsewhere while leaving women and the elderly behind .
The German general Erich Ludendorff explained in his memoir , “ on the one hand it was desirable not to make a present to the enemy of too much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and laborers , and on the other we wanted to foist upon him as many mouths to feed as possible.
” That ’ s a pretty horrifying concept on Ludendorff ’ s part , and if you wanted to make a movie about World War I that painted the Germans as the “ bad guys , ” it would in many ways be a smart thing to focus on .
But that ’ s really not the film Mendes delivered .
Even though you see the landscape that was left devastated by German @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clearly crafted a film in which war itself rather than the German Army is the villain .
That ’ s very much in keeping with predominant literary interpretation of the war that dominated in the 1920s and ‘ 30s , which cast it as pointless bloodshed .
By the same token , Mendes ’ s film reminded me over and over again of All Quiet on the Western Front which won Best Picture 90 years ago in 1930 .
All Quiet on the Western Front dwells on the alternating terror and boredom of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ looking for food , features a soldier expressing regret about having taken home leave , contains a failed effort to carry a wounded comrade to safety after an airplane-related injury , and very heavily emphasizes the notion of World War I as senseless slaughter whose causes nobody can even comprehend .
In that sense , 1917 is a kind of old-fashioned movie ( Wonder Woman , which depicts World War I-era Germans as proto-Nazis , offers a slightly more contemporary treatment , though the historiography is now trending back in Mendes ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of what I liked about the tricky camerawork .
I know a lot of professional film critics found it to be showy or even distracting , but I thought it was engrossing .
Rewatching some key scenes from All Quiet On the Western Front to prep for this roundtable , what I found distracting was the extent to which a director working before the dawn of modern camera technology or special effects budgets had to rely on repeated quick cuts and close-up inserts to try to convey battle action .
Letting the camera @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the past , but in some ways a more intuitive presentation — after all , we all experience life as kind of a one shot take .
Alissa : I ’ m glad you brought up All Quiet on the Western Front , Matt , as well as the way Hollywood has treated World War I .
It seems like part of the challenge of depicting war on screen is that it gives filmmakers a few different modes to work in .
There ’ s the epic sweep of history and strategy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the things-blow-up “ adventure ” of it all , and then there ’ s the slogging human toll .
And the latter is what 1917 does best , I think .
( That final scene with Richard Madden breaking down really got me . )
Which makes sense , since Mendes wrote the film from his recollections of his grandfather ’ s stories .
I want to spend a little more time on the one-shot concept , because I am one of the critics who found it unnecessarily showy .
To me , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bravado than something that really worked in the film .
Part of my problem with it was that Mendes didn ’ t seem able to pick a point of view .
Sometimes I did feel like a third soldier , as you said , Alex .
Other times the camera was swooping over soldiers as they ran and dodged , like the eye of God ( or at least a stray hawk ) .
And while the effect is supposed to mimic experiencing the events in “ real time , ” it obviously @ @ @ @ @ @ @ movie can not chronicle the events of a day in “ real time.
” Movie magic !
The best part , however , was how the tracking camera worked in the trenches — and as you both have said , trench warfare was what World War I really was .
I ’ m wondering if you can spin that out a little further — what did that mean for the everyday reality of the soldiers ?
How was it different from World War II ?
Alex : Well , being in the trenches @ @ @ @ @ @ @ day in the mud and darkness .
Life was pretty concentrated to the dugouts , and if you wanted to advance , it would be out in the open where you were very vulnerable .
At least for me , watching the movie made me think , “ Man , those trenches sure looked cozy ” as the two soldiers wandered the battlefield .
Trenches were still used in World War II , so it ’ s not like trench warfare disappeared entirely .
But technology was more advanced in that war : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , guns were deadlier .
Think of it this way : In World War I a lot supplies , weapons , and people were transported by horses .
In World War II , transport was much more mechanical and armored .
So , when we think of 1917 , the word that sticks out to me is “ vulnerable.
” In the trenches , you ’ re vulnerable to disease , boredom , and a general unease .
Out in the open , you ’ re obviously very vulnerable to attack .
Even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they got stuck in the mud , I was half expecting an ambush .
The one-shot method made me feel vulnerable as I watched — like I was always in danger — so I was always on edge .
Matt : The trenches really defined World War I on the battlefield because on the one hand you had machine guns but no tanks ( until the very end of the war ) , so to a first approximation , the dug-in on the defensive always won .
World War II was much more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , amphibious assaults and other things that , while terrifying , didn ’ t have the particular horror of being stuck in a hole surrounded by rats .
What ’ s telling is that even though trenches defined World War I , nobody can bring themselves to make a whole movie about it !
In Peter Weir ’ s Gallipoli ( 1981 ) the trenches only come in at the end , and for most of the movie you ’ re moving around .
Jean Renoir ’ s The Grand Illusion ( 1937 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ situation with pilots and POWs .
Both are great movies , but they ’ re focused on edge cases so as to not just be two hours in a trench .
In 1917 it ’ s the opposite , and the quotidian horror of trench warfare is quickly replaced by a more “ exciting ” mission to No Man ’ s Land .
It would be interesting to see someone try to pull off an all-trench story .
Matt : It would also be interesting to see a movie about the American role @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tweaks the timeline of the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line to have the action take place on April 6 , which is the exact day the US declares war on Germany .
This detail then turns out to be totally irrelevant .
That has to be a deliberate choice , but it also doesn ’ t make any sense to me — it ’ s an Easter egg for World War I nerds , but we are also the only people who ’ d be annoyed by shifting the German withdrawal from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I think war movies become history porn and don ’ t focus enough on the actual toils of the service member .
I appreciate that 1917 is all about the young soldiers and the perils they faced in every second .
It may be somewhat ahistorical , but it felt more authentic — if that ’ s a thing — than any war movie I ’ ve seen in a long time .
Matt : Along the same lines , I thought 1917 did an excellent job of capturing something that I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Soldiers do courageous things primarily out of a sense of obligation to one another on a human level , rather than for political or strategic causes that are generally very remote from the actual wartime experience .
Alissa : I think the conclusion we ’ re arriving at is that you both really liked 1917 because it brings war down to human scale , not by showing its effects on civilians , but by showing its effects on the soldiers themselves .
If you were trying to think of other ways to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the reasons is so important — what would they be ?
Matt : That ’ s a great question .
I do think one of the big things you lose with the fake “ real time ” structure of 1917 is any ability to really explore aftermath and changes in home life .
There was a lot of great literature in the 1920s about the postwar experiences of soldiers who ’ d come back home — often physically wounded but also psychologically damaged , with what we ’ d call post-traumatic stress disorder @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this in Andrew Scott ’ s portrayal of an officer who seems to have lost it as a result of prolonged command on the front lines , but it makes you curious — what ’ s he going to do after the war ?
The nature of World War I was that soldiers tended to experience some fairly similar trench conditions regardless of nationality , but to the best of my understanding , the actual responses to the situation were incredibly varied both psychologically and politically .
There ’ s an incredible immediacy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two particular soldiers over a very limited span of time , but it does really narrow your perspective of what the war really meant .
Alex : I think most movies have failed at this .
We see clumsy glimpses of the long-term effects of war in The Hurt Locker and in certain parts of American Sniper .
It ’ s of course always worth exploring what happens in war , but we really need good movies about what happens after .
Otherwise , our sense of the “ glory ” of war @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like about 1917 , and especially the Andrew Scott section , is we started to get a little sense of how the war would continue to affect him , as Matt alluded to .
I would love to know more , always remembering that these are ordinary people doing an extraordinary thing before they go back to being ordinary .
There ’ s beauty and pain in that , and I want to see more .
Alissa : I have my quibbles with 1917 , and there are a number of other films @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Picture , though I won ’ t be surprised ( or particularly mad ) if 1917 takes home the trophy .
It seems in some ways inevitable after the film ’ s Golden Globes win .
Do you think it deserves the title ?
Matt : I liked this movie a lot and it winning would make film critics angry , so I support that outcome .
Alex : I think it ’ s the most stunning film I saw last year , so I ’ d be fine if it won .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ acted , but it was the best shot — in my mind — and it was surely the film that will stick with me longest after this awards cycle .
I can ’ t recommend it enough .
Alissa : One last question : Is there another book or movie or TV series or whatever that you might recommend to people whose interest was peaked by 1917 ?
Matt : This is basically the opposite of a tightly focused narrative on the experiences of individual soldiers , but I am on a mission @ @ @ @ @ @ @ read Christopher Clark ’ s revisionist account of the origins of World War I , The Sleepwalkers , so I will recommend it here , too .
But I ’ ll also say that while the film version of All Quiet on the Western Front is very obviously dated , the novel that it ’ s based on holds up really well and is close in spirit to 1917 .
Alex : I second The Sleepwalkers , because it is very good .
Also , despite its many flaws , I ’ d @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s the study of something that doesn ’ t get covered often in war : boredom .
There are of course other elements to the film , but I appreciate a war movie taking the time to reflect on what the everyday doldrums of being at war looks like , and what it can do to the service member who desperately wants to get in the fight .
I ’ d also suggest that people read Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell or Dispatches by Michael Herr .
Both are deeply human , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stakes of war .

Every year, between five and 10 movies compete for the Oscars’ Best Picture trophy. It’s the most prestigious award that the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences gives out every year, announced right at the end of the ceremony. And there aren’t any set rules about what constitutes a “best” picture. It’s the movie — for better or worse, depending on the year — that Hollywood designates as its standard bearer for the current moment.
And so, the film that wins Best Picture essentially represents the American movie industry’s view of its accomplishments in the present and its aspirations for the future.
Each year’s nominee slate roughly approximates the movies the industry thinks showcase its greatest achievements from the past 12 months. And one thing that’s definitely true about the nine Best Picture nominees from 2019 is that, in tone and theme, they’re all over the place.
The most-nominated film overall is also one of the year’s most successful commercially, and one of its most controversial. A beloved social thriller from Korea has reached the milestone of becoming that country’s first Best Picture and Best International Feature nominee. There are three historical dramas: one set during World War I, one that centers on a 1966 car race, and one that co-stars an imaginary Hitler. There’s a quietly funny drama about love and divorce and a revisionist history of Hollywood in the summer of 1969. The world’s arguably most influential living auteur made a gangster epic with eternity on its mind. And a critically acclaimed adaptation of a celebrated novel rounds out the group.
In the runup to the Oscars on February 9, the Vox staff is looking at each of the nine Best Picture nominees in turn. What makes this film appealing to Academy voters? What makes it emblematic of the year? And should it win?
Below, Vox film critic Alissa Wilkinson, international security and defense staff writer Alex Ward, and senior correspondent Matt Yglesias discuss 1917, Sam Mendes’s “one-take” journey through the trenches of World War I.
Alissa: I have weird feelings about 1917, a movie I both admire and find moving, yet also find distracting for some of its filmmaking choices. But what I realized while watching it was that I admired it for applying innovative techniques to overcome the audience’s perception of what a “war film” is (like Christopher Nolan’s excellent Dunkirk did) — and, in so doing, felt like it was actively trying to deflate any Hollywood notions of the “glory” of war. (I’m not sure it’s successful in the technique it used — I’ll get to that later — but I admire the attempt.)
The other thing I realized is that I don’t really know a lot about World War I, probably because the movies have historically been so focused on two other wars: World War II and the Vietnam War. I think you’re both far more versed in that than I am. So as you were watching, what were your first impressions? And what did you come away thinking about?
Alex: The thing to know about World War I, without really getting into the history, is that it was a war of trench warfare. That led to long periods of waiting in muddy, cold, dark subterranean areas before rushes of attacks where troops would face machine guns and other dangerous weaponry. I thought 1917 captured both the dreary nature of life in the trenches and the unsettling danger of being outside of them. The camerawork made me feel like I was the third soldier, seeing every horror, fearing every sound. I was waiting for a war movie to make me feel this in a visceral way, and I thought 1917 nailed it.
Matt: Sam Mendes didn’t seem too interested in offering historical context to explain what was going on, but I happen to love World War I history (see Vox’s 40 Maps That Explain World War I) and I think the specific context gives a deeper understanding of some of the artistic choices at work here.
As you can see on this map of where the front lines stood in 1916, the German trenches had this kind of weird westward bulge in northern France:
That was called the Noyon Salient. Right before the events of the movie, the Germans constructed a whole secondary series of defensive trenches behind the Salient known as the Hindenburg Line, after one of their top commanders. Then they executed a quiet strategic withdrawal called Operation Alberich, in which they fell back from the original front to the Hindenburg Line.
The basic idea was that the Hindenburg Line was straighter and they could defend it with fewer troops, which would free up extra men to go east to fight the Russians and knock them out of the war (this worked, leading to the Russian Revolution). The Germans deliberately destroyed everything of use in the Salient, and deported most of the able-bodied men to work in war production elsewhere while leaving women and the elderly behind. The German general Erich Ludendorff explained in his memoir, “on the one hand it was desirable not to make a present to the enemy of too much fresh strength in the form of recruits and laborers, and on the other we wanted to foist upon him as many mouths to feed as possible.”
That’s a pretty horrifying concept on Ludendorff’s part, and if you wanted to make a movie about World War I that painted the Germans as the “bad guys,” it would in many ways be a smart thing to focus on.
But that’s really not the film Mendes delivered. Even though you see the landscape that was left devastated by German occupation and withdrawal, he’s clearly crafted a film in which war itself rather than the German Army is the villain. That’s very much in keeping with predominant literary interpretation of the war that dominated in the 1920s and ‘30s, which cast it as pointless bloodshed. By the same token, Mendes’s film reminded me over and over again of All Quiet on the Western Front which won Best Picture 90 years ago in 1930. All Quiet on the Western Front dwells on the alternating terror and boredom of trench life, opens with hungry soldiers looking for food, features a soldier expressing regret about having taken home leave, contains a failed effort to carry a wounded comrade to safety after an airplane-related injury, and very heavily emphasizes the notion of World War I as senseless slaughter whose causes nobody can even comprehend.
In that sense, 1917 is a kind of old-fashioned movie (Wonder Woman, which depicts World War I-era Germans as proto-Nazis, offers a slightly more contemporary treatment, though the historiography is now trending back in Mendes’s direction). And that is part of what I liked about the tricky camerawork. I know a lot of professional film critics found it to be showy or even distracting, but I thought it was engrossing. Rewatching some key scenes from All Quiet On the Western Front to prep for this roundtable, what I found distracting was the extent to which a director working before the dawn of modern camera technology or special effects budgets had to rely on repeated quick cuts and close-up inserts to try to convey battle action. Letting the camera float continuously is a huge stylistic break from the past, but in some ways a more intuitive presentation — after all, we all experience life as kind of a one shot take.
Alissa: I’m glad you brought up All Quiet on the Western Front, Matt, as well as the way Hollywood has treated World War I. It seems like part of the challenge of depicting war on screen is that it gives filmmakers a few different modes to work in. There’s the epic sweep of history and strategy and map-making, and there’s the things-blow-up “adventure” of it all, and then there’s the slogging human toll. And the latter is what 1917 does best, I think. (That final scene with Richard Madden breaking down really got me.) Which makes sense, since Mendes wrote the film from his recollections of his grandfather’s stories.
I want to spend a little more time on the one-shot concept, because I am one of the critics who found it unnecessarily showy. To me, it felt more like an act of bravado than something that really worked in the film. Part of my problem with it was that Mendes didn’t seem able to pick a point of view. Sometimes I did feel like a third soldier, as you said, Alex. Other times the camera was swooping over soldiers as they ran and dodged, like the eye of God (or at least a stray hawk). And while the effect is supposed to mimic experiencing the events in “real time,” it obviously does not do that; a two-hour movie cannot chronicle the events of a day in “real time.” Movie magic!
The best part, however, was how the tracking camera worked in the trenches — and as you both have said, trench warfare was what World War I really was. I’m wondering if you can spin that out a little further — what did that mean for the everyday reality of the soldiers? How was it different from World War II?
Alex: Well, being in the trenches meant that you spent most of your day in the mud and darkness. Life was pretty concentrated to the dugouts, and if you wanted to advance, it would be out in the open where you were very vulnerable. At least for me, watching the movie made me think, “Man, those trenches sure looked cozy” as the two soldiers wandered the battlefield.
Trenches were still used in World War II, so it’s not like trench warfare disappeared entirely. But technology was more advanced in that war: bombs were stronger, planes were faster, guns were deadlier. Think of it this way: In World War I a lot supplies, weapons, and people were transported by horses. In World War II, transport was much more mechanical and armored.
So, when we think of 1917, the word that sticks out to me is “vulnerable.” In the trenches, you’re vulnerable to disease, boredom, and a general unease. Out in the open, you’re obviously very vulnerable to attack. Even during the scene in the truck where they got stuck in the mud, I was half expecting an ambush. The one-shot method made me feel vulnerable as I watched — like I was always in danger — so I was always on edge.
Matt: The trenches really defined World War I on the battlefield because on the one hand you had machine guns but no tanks (until the very end of the war), so to a first approximation, the dug-in on the defensive always won. World War II was much more defined by mobile forces, air power, amphibious assaults and other things that, while terrifying, didn’t have the particular horror of being stuck in a hole surrounded by rats.
What’s telling is that even though trenches defined World War I, nobody can bring themselves to make a whole movie about it! In Peter Weir’s Gallipoli (1981) the trenches only come in at the end, and for most of the movie you’re moving around. Jean Renoir’s The Grand Illusion (1937) is built around a very idiosyncratic situation with pilots and POWs. Both are great movies, but they’re focused on edge cases so as to not just be two hours in a trench. In 1917 it’s the opposite, and the quotidian horror of trench warfare is quickly replaced by a more “exciting” mission to No Man’s Land. It would be interesting to see someone try to pull off an all-trench story.
Alex: I would watch a one-shot all-trench story.
Matt: It would also be interesting to see a movie about the American role in World War I! Mendes slightly tweaks the timeline of the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line to have the action take place on April 6, which is the exact day the US declares war on Germany. This detail then turns out to be totally irrelevant. That has to be a deliberate choice, but it also doesn’t make any sense to me — it’s an Easter egg for World War I nerds, but we are also the only people who’d be annoyed by shifting the German withdrawal from March to April.
Alex: Sometimes I think war movies become history porn and don’t focus enough on the actual toils of the service member. I appreciate that 1917 is all about the young soldiers and the perils they faced in every second. It may be somewhat ahistorical, but it felt more authentic — if that’s a thing — than any war movie I’ve seen in a long time.
Matt: Along the same lines, I thought 1917 did an excellent job of capturing something that I think all the scholarship about war backs up: Soldiers do courageous things primarily out of a sense of obligation to one another on a human level, rather than for political or strategic causes that are generally very remote from the actual wartime experience.
Alissa: I think the conclusion we’re arriving at is that you both really liked 1917 because it brings war down to human scale, not by showing its effects on civilians, but by showing its effects on the soldiers themselves. If you were trying to think of other ways to drive that point home — and listing the reasons is so important — what would they be?
Matt: That’s a great question. I do think one of the big things you lose with the fake “real time” structure of 1917 is any ability to really explore aftermath and changes in home life. There was a lot of great literature in the 1920s about the postwar experiences of soldiers who’d come back home — often physically wounded but also psychologically damaged, with what we’d call post-traumatic stress disorder today. You see a hint of this in Andrew Scott’s portrayal of an officer who seems to have lost it as a result of prolonged command on the front lines, but it makes you curious — what’s he going to do after the war?
The nature of World War I was that soldiers tended to experience some fairly similar trench conditions regardless of nationality, but to the best of my understanding, the actual responses to the situation were incredibly varied both psychologically and politically. There’s an incredible immediacy to 1917’s tight focus on two particular soldiers over a very limited span of time, but it does really narrow your perspective of what the war really meant.
Alex: I think most movies have failed at this. We see clumsy glimpses of the long-term effects of war in The Hurt Locker and in certain parts of American Sniper. It’s of course always worth exploring what happens in war, but we really need good movies about what happens after. Otherwise, our sense of the “glory” of war is at best incomplete.
What I like about 1917, and especially the Andrew Scott section, is we started to get a little sense of how the war would continue to affect him, as Matt alluded to. I would love to know more, always remembering that these are ordinary people doing an extraordinary thing before they go back to being ordinary. There’s beauty and pain in that, and I want to see more.
Alissa: I have my quibbles with 1917, and there are a number of other films I’d rather see win Best Picture, though I won’t be surprised (or particularly mad) if 1917 takes home the trophy. It seems in some ways inevitable after the film’s Golden Globes win. Do you think it deserves the title?
Matt: I liked this movie a lot and it winning would make film critics angry, so I support that outcome.
Alex: I think it’s the most stunning film I saw last year, so I’d be fine if it won. It wasn’t necessarily the best acted, but it was the best shot — in my mind — and it was surely the film that will stick with me longest after this awards cycle. I can’t recommend it enough.
Alissa: One last question: Is there another book or movie or TV series or whatever that you might recommend to people whose interest was peaked by 1917?
Matt: This is basically the opposite of a tightly focused narrative on the experiences of individual soldiers, but I am on a mission in life to get more people to read Christopher Clark’s revisionist account of the origins of World War I, The Sleepwalkers, so I will recommend it here, too. But I’ll also say that while the film version of All Quiet on the Western Front is very obviously dated, the novel that it’s based on holds up really well and is close in spirit to 1917.
Alex: I second The Sleepwalkers, because it is very good. Also, despite its many flaws, I’d recommend seeing Jarhead, because it’s the study of something that doesn’t get covered often in war: boredom. There are of course other elements to the film, but I appreciate a war movie taking the time to reflect on what the everyday doldrums of being at war looks like, and what it can do to the service member who desperately wants to get in the fight.
I’d also suggest that people read Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell or Dispatches by Michael Herr. Both are deeply human, powerful stories about the complexities and high stakes of war.
Read the Vox staff’s thoughts on all nine of the 2020 Best Picture nominees:
1917 | Ford v Ferrari | The Irishman | Jojo Rabbit | Joker | Little Women | Marriage Story | Once Upon a Time in Hollywood | Parasite


vox--2020-01-25--9 highlights from the impeachment trial this week

This week , House Democrats , across three days and more than 20 hours , presented their opening arguments for the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump .
Last year , the House charged Trump with two articles of impeachment : abuse of power and obstruction of Congress .
Exhaustive , direct , and at times emotional , Democrats ’ case established the timeline for Trump ’ s actions when it came to conditioning military aid for Ukraine on political favors the president demanded .
Over and over they emphasized : The president put his own interests above the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s entirely possible he ’ ll do it again .
“ You can trust he will do what ’ s right for Donald Trump .
He ’ ll do it now .
He ’ s done it before , ” Rep. Adam Schiff , the lead impeachment manager , said when making the explicit case for Trump ’ s removal .
“ He ’ ll do it for the next several months .
He ’ ll do it in the election if he ’ s allowed to.
” Democrats also devoted significant time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s defense , including debunking claims about former Vice President Joe Biden and Burisma , the Ukrainian energy company whose board Biden ’ s son Hunter sat on .
“ Vice President Biden ’ s conduct was uniformly validated by the witnesses in the House investigation who confirmed his conduct was consistent with US policy , ” impeachment manager Rep. Sylvia Garcia said .
The days , which began at 1 pm Eastern , as dictated by long-standing Senate rules , were long .
And senators were put in a unique position : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they were barred from talking , using cellphones , or drinking anything besides milk or water .
The trial has forced the upper chamber out of its standard routine and into a new one , introducing some Republican senators to facts about the impeachment inquiry for the first time .
Democrats aimed to connect with these lawmakers by making a two-part plea : Using more than 50 video clips , text screengrabs , and documents , they systematically laid out the evidence in the case .
At the same time , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ moral responsibility .
“ If you find him guilty , you must find that he should be removed , ” Schiff said .
“ Because right matters and the truth matters.
” In the near term , Democrats are hoping to sway at least four Senate Republicans to vote in favor of more witnesses and evidence next week .
Longer term , they ’ re trying to shape public opinion , with an election looming later this year .
Here are the nine most important moments that capture this week ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Next up , we ’ ll hear from Trump ’ s defense team .
Democrats staged a marathon vote on amendments until 2 am Wednesday Tuesday went much later than most Senate sessions , blowing past both Chuck Grassley ’ s 9 pm bedtime and that of pretty much everyone else present .
Much of the day was spent in a fiery debate over the rules of the trial .
To kick things off , Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell unveiled a resolution outlining the rules on Monday — and the proposal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , because it postponed a vote on witnesses and additional evidence until later in the trial .
“ The McConnell rules seem to be designed by President Trump , for President Trump , ” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said at the time .
Senate Democrats , led by Schumer , sought to change the measure , and introduced 11 amendments to do so .
These covered a range of subjects and forced the Senate to vote on subpoenaing documents from government agencies and subpoenaing witnesses including acting White House Chief of Staff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shot down by Republicans , who remained almost completely united throughout these votes .
As a result , the Senate will again debate the question of whether more testimony and documents will be considered as part of the trial , next week .
By forcing vote after vote , however , Democrats were able to make their point : that they see this trial as skewed in favor of Trump .
As Vox ’ s Sean Collins reported , one of the tensest moments during the trial took place in the early hours @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nadler accused Senate Republicans of being complicit in a “ cover-up ” of Trump ’ s actions .
“ Will you choose to be complicit in the president ’ s cover-up ?
” Nadler asked .
“ So far , I ’ m sad to say I see a lot of senators voting for a cover-up , voting to deny witnesses — an absolutely indefensible vote , obviously a treacherous vote.
” White House counsel Pat Cipollone shot back in a dramatic fashion , arguing that Nadler needed to apologize to the president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t deserve , and we don ’ t deserve , what just happened , ” Cipollone told senators , slamming the House case as “ false.
” Following this back-and-forth , Chief Justice John Roberts , in one of his most notable moments in the trial thus far , wound up admonishing both of them , cautioning them to remember that they were speaking to the world ’ s “ greatest deliberative body.
” “ Those addressing the Senate should remember where they are , ” Roberts said .
Later in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) told Politico that she had passed Roberts a note expressing her discomfort with Nadler ’ s rhetoric , shortly before the justice made his remarks .
The Senate has had a longstanding fixation on decorum , and lawmakers including Sen. Elizabeth Warren ( D-MA ) have previously been disciplined for allegedly “ impugning ” another senator .
The first day of House Democrats ’ opening arguments were heavily focused on laying out the exact timeline of the charges that Trump faced .
The impeachment managers provided a month-by-month chronology of all the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ led to a hold on military aid to Ukraine , and the recurring demands for political investigations into Joe Biden and alleged 2016 election interference .
Because of the linear and comprehensive presentation , Democrats drew an incredibly effective and easy-to-follow through line with the evidence they have .
“ If we don ’ t stand up to this peril today , we will write the history of our decline with our own hand , ” Schiff said .
Democrats also repeatedly called out the ways that additional evidence and witnesses could further @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to inquiries about putting a hold on the military aid to Ukraine , for example , and his testimony would likely shed more light on them .
Schiff , in a pointed moment on Wednesday night , called out the political realities that surround this trial .
For Republicans , a vote against Trump either on procedure or on the final conviction could mean they lose support from the GOP base in elections down the line , given how much Republican voters still back Trump .
According to a Gallup poll , 88 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ s doing as president .
And while roughly a third of Republicans think it ’ s likely he may have done something illegal , a Pew poll finds that 86 percent do not want to see him removed .
North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis , a vulnerable Republican who initially broke with Trump in his support of the national emergency to fund the border wall , is among the lawmakers to experience the backlash of bucking the president firsthand .
While Tillis ultimately reversed his position , he dealt with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ announcing his original opposition .
Schiff confronted this dynamic head-on this week , calling for Republicans to have the “ courage ” to make the decision that they think is right , even if it endangers their seat .
“ They risked everything , their careers , ” Schiff said , when describing the testimony of officials like former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch .
“ And yes , I know what you ’ re asked to decide may risk yours too .
If they can show the courage , so can we.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Schiff more explicitly spelled out the pressure Senators could be facing from Trump himself , citing a CBS News report , which featured a source noting that lawmakers had been warned they ’ d find their “ head ... on a pike ” if they defied the President .
Multiple Republicans rejected this claim and were riled up by this framing as the Democrats ’ arguments wrapped .
It ’ s evident , though , that Trump has a strong hold on the GOP — and has been known to threaten those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Jerry Nadler dismantled a central plank of Trump ’ s defense — using Trump defenders Lindsey Graham ’ s and Alan Dershowitz ’ s own words House Democrats spent much of their second day preemptively combating anticipated arguments from Trump ’ s defense , including the claim that the articles of impeachment don ’ t meet the threshold that ’ s needed to remove him from office .
So far , Trump ’ s counsel has argued that his actions do not constitute a crime or a violation of the law , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ offense .
This reasoning is flawed for a variety of reasons , as Vox ’ s Ian Millhiser has explained , and it appears both Sen. Lindsey Graham ( R-SC ) and Trump counsel Alan Dershowitz once agreed .
In fact , impeachment manager Rep. Jerry Nadler cited both when he argued that abuse of power is an impeachable offense , a position that many constitutional scholars have reaffirmed .
Graham said much the same when he was an impeachment manager during President Bill Clinton ’ s trial in 1999 : “ It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a crime .
It ’ s just when you start using your office and you ’ re acting in a way that hurts people , you ’ ve committed a high crime.
” Because Republicans haven ’ t been able to engage in the substance of the charges that have been brought against Trump , they ’ ve repeatedly aimed to redirect the focus to former Vice President Joe Biden , who pressed for the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin when he was in office .
A debunked Republican conspiracy theory has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did this was to protect his son Hunter Biden , who was sitting on the board of a natural gas company called Burisma , from further scrutiny .
There is no evidence to suggest this is the case , a point that House impeachment manager Rep. Sylvia Garcia emphasized .
“ Every witness with knowledge of this issue testified that Vice President Biden was carrying out official US policy , ” she said .
Some Republicans argued that Democrats ’ focus on Biden was a mistake , because it opened the door to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meanwhile , likely took this tack because Republicans were going to go after him anyway .
Adam Schiff answered the big question : Why Trump should be removed One of the most stunning moments of the trial took place on Thursday evening , when Schiff confronted the central question of these proceedings : Should Trump be removed from office ?
His arguments were directly aimed at Republicans , who will need to weigh whether they think the president should not only be convicted of the actions he ’ s charged with , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Schiff plainly laid out the biggest reason for convicting Trump : to ensure that he doesn ’ t do all of this again .
“ No one is really making the argument , ‘ Donald Trump would never do such a thing , ’ because of course we know that he would , and of course we know that he did , ” Schiff said .
“ We all know what we ’ re dealing here with this president.
” He emphasized that Trump could continue to do a lot of damage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the country , even in the limited time between now and the November election .
“ He ’ ll do it in the election if he ’ s allowed to , ” Schiff said .
“ This is why if you find him guilty , you must find that he should be removed.
” Democrats emphasize the importance of acknowledging obstruction of Congress Friday ’ s arguments were dedicated heavily to breaking down the case of the second article of impeachment , obstruction of Congress .
House Democrats emphasized that the president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ documents , and direct other administration officials to do the same in response to subpoenas for witness testimony , demonstrated Trump ’ s fixation on simply doing whatever he wants , with little sense of accountability .
By setting a precedent for this type of behavior , Trump was establishing a much more expansive sense of what the president is capable of doing , the managers argue , depriving Congress of its ability to check the executive .
“ Only his will goes , ” Nadler said .
“ He is a dictator @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is another reason he must be removed from office.
” As Schiff noted , if a president was fully empowered to obstruct Congress , an impeachment inquiry couldn ’ t even really take place .
“ If there is no article two there , let me tell you something , there will be no article one , ” he said .
Schiff fact-checks Republicans before they even present Because of the timing of the impeachment trial , Trump ’ s defense counsel will now have three days to offer their arguments for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have the ability to directly respond .
In anticipation of this set-up , Schiff predicted arguments Republicans were likely to make about what they ’ ve described as a rigged process , and rebutted them point by point .
• If they say the process was unfair , because of “ secret ” depositions in the basement of the Senate that didn ’ t allow Republicans to participate : “ Every Democrat , every Republican on three committees could participate ... you know how we did it in those super secret depositions , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we released the transcripts .
We got an hour , they got an hour .
We got 45 minutes , they got 45 minutes.
” • If they attack the impeachment managers : “ You can expect attacks on all kinds of members of the House that have noting to do with the issues before you .
When you hear those attacks , you should ask yourself — away from what do they want to distract my attention .
Because nine times out of ten it will be the president ’ s misconduct.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ will make the trial too long : “ Is it too much fatigue to call witnesses and have a fair trial ?
Are the blessings of freedom so meager that we will not endure the fatigue of a fair trial ?
” Schiff said that the Republican arguments were serving as a diversion : “ When they say the process was unfair , what they really mean is don ’ t look at what the president did .
For God ’ s sake , don ’ t look at what the president did @ @

This week, House Democrats, across three days and more than 20 hours, presented their opening arguments for the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. Last year, the House charged Trump with two articles of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Exhaustive, direct, and at times emotional, Democrats’ case established the timeline for Trump’s actions when it came to conditioning military aid for Ukraine on political favors the president demanded. Over and over they emphasized: The president put his own interests above the country’s, and it’s entirely possible he’ll do it again.
“You can trust he will do what’s right for Donald Trump. He’ll do it now. He’s done it before,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the lead impeachment manager, said when making the explicit case for Trump’s removal. “He’ll do it for the next several months. He’ll do it in the election if he’s allowed to.”
Democrats also devoted significant time to preempting potential arguments from Trump’s defense, including debunking claims about former Vice President Joe Biden and Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company whose board Biden’s son Hunter sat on. “Vice President Biden’s conduct was uniformly validated by the witnesses in the House investigation who confirmed his conduct was consistent with US policy,” impeachment manager Rep. Sylvia Garcia said.
The days, which began at 1 pm Eastern, as dictated by long-standing Senate rules, were long. And senators were put in a unique position: While serving as jurors inside the chamber, they were barred from talking, using cellphones, or drinking anything besides milk or water.
The trial has forced the upper chamber out of its standard routine and into a new one, introducing some Republican senators to facts about the impeachment inquiry for the first time.
Democrats aimed to connect with these lawmakers by making a two-part plea: Using more than 50 video clips, text screengrabs, and documents, they systematically laid out the evidence in the case. At the same time, they also made an emotional appeal to Republicans’ moral responsibility.
“If you find him guilty, you must find that he should be removed,” Schiff said. “Because right matters and the truth matters.” In the near term, Democrats are hoping to sway at least four Senate Republicans to vote in favor of more witnesses and evidence next week. Longer term, they’re trying to shape public opinion, with an election looming later this year.
Here are the nine most important moments that capture this week’s historic, and often surreal, events. Next up, we’ll hear from Trump’s defense team.
Democrats staged a marathon vote on amendments until 2 am Wednesday
Tuesday went much later than most Senate sessions, blowing past both Chuck Grassley’s 9 pm bedtime and that of pretty much everyone else present.
Much of the day was spent in a fiery debate over the rules of the trial. To kick things off, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell unveiled a resolution outlining the rules on Monday — and the proposal was met with strong opposition from Democrats, because it postponed a vote on witnesses and additional evidence until later in the trial.
“The McConnell rules seem to be designed by President Trump, for President Trump,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said at the time.
Senate Democrats, led by Schumer, sought to change the measure, and introduced 11 amendments to do so. These covered a range of subjects and forced the Senate to vote on subpoenaing documents from government agencies and subpoenaing witnesses including acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.
All 11 amendments were shot down by Republicans, who remained almost completely united throughout these votes. As a result, the Senate will again debate the question of whether more testimony and documents will be considered as part of the trial, next week.
By forcing vote after vote, however, Democrats were able to make their point: that they see this trial as skewed in favor of Trump.
Chief Justice John Roberts admonishes Democrats and Republicans
As Vox’s Sean Collins reported, one of the tensest moments during the trial took place in the early hours of Wednesday morning, when Rep. Jerry Nadler accused Senate Republicans of being complicit in a “cover-up” of Trump’s actions.
“Will you choose to be complicit in the president’s cover-up?” Nadler asked. “So far, I’m sad to say I see a lot of senators voting for a cover-up, voting to deny witnesses — an absolutely indefensible vote, obviously a treacherous vote.”
White House counsel Pat Cipollone shot back in a dramatic fashion, arguing that Nadler needed to apologize to the president for his comments. “You don’t deserve, and we don’t deserve, what just happened,” Cipollone told senators, slamming the House case as “false.”
Following this back-and-forth, Chief Justice John Roberts, in one of his most notable moments in the trial thus far, wound up admonishing both of them, cautioning them to remember that they were speaking to the world’s “greatest deliberative body.”
“Those addressing the Senate should remember where they are,” Roberts said.
Later in the week, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told Politico that she had passed Roberts a note expressing her discomfort with Nadler’s rhetoric, shortly before the justice made his remarks.
The Senate has had a longstanding fixation on decorum, and lawmakers including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have previously been disciplined for allegedly “impugning” another senator.
Democrats provided a detailed timeline for Trump’s actions
The first day of House Democrats’ opening arguments were heavily focused on laying out the exact timeline of the charges that Trump faced.
The impeachment managers provided a month-by-month chronology of all the meetings, calls, and emails that led to a hold on military aid to Ukraine, and the recurring demands for political investigations into Joe Biden and alleged 2016 election interference.
Because of the linear and comprehensive presentation, Democrats drew an incredibly effective and easy-to-follow through line with the evidence they have.
“If we don’t stand up to this peril today, we will write the history of our decline with our own hand,” Schiff said.
Democrats also repeatedly called out the ways that additional evidence and witnesses could further bolster the case. Mulvaney was central to inquiries about putting a hold on the military aid to Ukraine, for example, and his testimony would likely shed more light on them.
Schiff asked Republicans to risk their careers
Schiff, in a pointed moment on Wednesday night, called out the political realities that surround this trial.
For Republicans, a vote against Trump either on procedure or on the final conviction could mean they lose support from the GOP base in elections down the line, given how much Republican voters still back Trump. According to a Gallup poll, 88 percent of Republicans approve of the job he’s doing as president. And while roughly a third of Republicans think it’s likely he may have done something illegal, a Pew poll finds that 86 percent do not want to see him removed.
North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, a vulnerable Republican who initially broke with Trump in his support of the national emergency to fund the border wall, is among the lawmakers to experience the backlash of bucking the president firsthand. While Tillis ultimately reversed his position, he dealt with the threat of a potential primary challenger in his opposition.
Schiff confronted this dynamic head-on this week, calling for Republicans to have the “courage” to make the decision that they think is right, even if it endangers their seat.
“They risked everything, their careers,” Schiff said, when describing the testimony of officials like former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. “And yes, I know what you’re asked to decide may risk yours too. If they can show the courage, so can we.”
In a later statement on Friday, Schiff more explicitly spelled out the pressure senators could be facing from Trump himself, citing a CBS News report, which featured a source noting that lawmakers had been warned they’d find their “head ... on a pike” if they defied the president.
Multiple Republicans rejected this claim and were riled up by this framing as the Democrats’ arguments wrapped. It’s evident, though, that Trump has a strong hold on the GOP — and has been known to threaten those who go against him in the past.
Jerry Nadler dismantled a central plank of Trump’s defense — using Trump defenders Lindsey Graham’s and Alan Dershowitz’s own words
House Democrats spent much of their second day preemptively combating anticipated arguments from Trump’s defense, including the claim that the articles of impeachment don’t meet the threshold that’s needed to remove him from office.
So far, Trump’s counsel has argued that his actions do not constitute a crime or a violation of the law, and as such are not an impeachable offense. This reasoning is flawed for a variety of reasons, as Vox’s Ian Millhiser has explained, and it appears both Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Trump counsel Alan Dershowitz once agreed.
In fact, impeachment manager Rep. Jerry Nadler cited both when he argued that abuse of power is an impeachable offense, a position that many constitutional scholars have reaffirmed.
Graham said much the same when he was an impeachment manager during President Bill Clinton’s trial in 1999: “It doesn’t even have to be a crime. It’s just when you start using your office and you’re acting in a way that hurts people, you’ve committed a high crime.”
Sylvia Garcia debunked the Joe Biden and Burisma conspiracy theory
Because Republicans haven’t been able to engage in the substance of the charges that have been brought against Trump, they’ve repeatedly aimed to redirect the focus to former Vice President Joe Biden, who pressed for the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin when he was in office.
A debunked Republican conspiracy theory has suggested that part of the reason Biden did this was to protect his son Hunter Biden, who was sitting on the board of a natural gas company called Burisma, from further scrutiny.
There is no evidence to suggest this is the case, a point that House impeachment manager Rep. Sylvia Garcia emphasized. “Every witness with knowledge of this issue testified that Vice President Biden was carrying out official US policy,” she said.
Some Republicans argued that Democrats’ focus on Biden was a mistake, because it opened the door to criticism of the candidate. Democrats, meanwhile, likely took this tack because Republicans were going to go after him anyway.
Adam Schiff answered the big question: Why Trump should be removed
One of the key moments of the trial took place on Thursday evening, when Schiff confronted the central question of these proceedings: Should Trump be removed from office?
His arguments were directly aimed at Republicans, who will need to weigh whether they think the president should not only be convicted of the actions he’s charged with, but removed from his post as a result.
Schiff plainly laid out the biggest reason for convicting Trump: to ensure that he doesn’t do all of this again.
“No one is really making the argument, ‘Donald Trump would never do such a thing,’ because of course we know that he would, and of course we know that he did,” Schiff said. “We all know what we’re dealing here with this president.”
He emphasized that Trump could continue to do a lot of damage by prioritizing his personal interests over those of the country, even in the limited time between now and the November election.
“He’ll do it in the election if he’s allowed to,” Schiff said. “This is why if you find him guilty, you must find that he should be removed.”
Democrats emphasized the importance of acknowledging obstruction of Congress
Friday’s arguments were dedicated heavily to breaking down the case of the second article of impeachment, obstruction of Congress.
House Democrats emphasized that the president’s decisions to defy subpoenas for documents, and direct other administration officials to do the same in response to subpoenas for witness testimony, demonstrated Trump’s fixation on simply doing whatever he wants, with little sense of accountability.
By setting a precedent for this type of behavior, Trump was establishing a much more expansive sense of what the president is capable of doing, the managers argue, depriving Congress of its ability to check the executive.
“Only his will goes,” Nadler said. “He is a dictator. This must not stand and that is another reason he must be removed from office.”
As Schiff noted, if a president was fully empowered to obstruct Congress, an impeachment inquiry couldn’t even really take place. “If there is no article two there, let me tell you something, there will be no article one,” he said.
Schiff fact-checked Republicans before they even began arguments
Because of the timing of the impeachment trial, Trump’s defense counsel will now have three days to offer their arguments for the case, and the prosecution will not have the ability to directly respond.
In anticipation of this arrangement, Schiff predicted arguments Republicans were likely to make about what they’ve described as a rigged process, and rebutted them point by point.
If they say the process was unfair, because of “secret” depositions in the basement of the Senate that didn’t allow Republicans to participate: “Every Democrat, every Republican on three committees could participate. ... You know how we did it in those super secret depositions, you can look this up yourself because we released the transcripts. We got an hour, they got an hour. We got 45 minutes, they got 45 minutes.”
If they attack the impeachment managers: “You can expect attacks on all kinds of members of the House that have nothing to do with the issues before you. And when you hear those attacks, you should ask yourself, ‘Away from what do they want to distract my attention?’ Because nine times out of 10 it will be the president’s misconduct.”
If they say calling witnesses will make the trial too long: “Is it too much fatigue to call witnesses and have a fair trial? Are the blessings of freedom so meager that we will not endure the fatigue of a fair trial?”
Schiff said that the Republican arguments serve as a diversion: “When they say the process was unfair, what they really mean is don’t look at what the president did. For God’s sake, don’t look at what the president did.”


vox--2020-01-25--A SARS-like virus is spreading quickly. Here’s what you need to know.

Only three and a half weeks ago , China announced the outbreak of a mysterious new coronavirus in the city of Wuhan involving a group of people who ’ d been exposed to animals at a local food market .
Flash-forward to Saturday : The number of cases of 2019-nCoV , as the virus is known , has leaped to more than 1,000 , and there are sick people in at least 11 other countries .
That includes two cases in the United States .
The first case , reported on January 21 , involves a man in his 30s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for 2019-nCoV after being hospitalized with pneumonia , according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) .
A second case , reported by CDC on January 24 , involves a woman in her 60s who lives in Chicago .
She returned from Wuhan on January 13 , and didn ’ t have any symptoms while traveling .
Nancy Messonnier , director of the CDC ’ s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases , said Friday that although the outbreak is a “ very serious public health threat , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is low at this time.
” Yet Tom Frieden , the former director of the CDC , told Vox he ’ s concerned by how infectious the virus is .
“ If the sustained human transmission and a high rate of severe illness are confirmed , then it clearly is an event of international concern.
” With information about 2019-nCoV — and its risk of spreading — evolving by the hour , we ’ ve answered basic questions about the outbreak here .
We ’ ll be updating this story as more information @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this coronavirus outbreak come from ?
The outbreak was first reported to the World Health Organization by Chinese officials on December 31 in Wuhan , a city of 11 million in Hubei province .
At that time , cases centered around Wuhan ’ s Huanan South China Seafood Market .
Local health officials reported then that patients with the virus were “ mainly business staff and purchasers ” at the market , where vendors peddle seafood as well as animals such as birds and rabbits .
Scientists in China quickly ruled out known @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leading hypothesis then was that a yet-to-be-identified novel virus had spread to humans from one of the animals in the market .
By January 9 , the state broadcaster , China Central Television , reported a major discovery : a new virus , known as 2019-nCoV .
Many of the people who had become ill tested positive for 2019-nCoV .
Two days later , Chinese scientists shared the genetic sequence of the new virus , and the WHO applauded China ’ s efforts for sharing information readily .
( This transparency was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , when China was heavily criticized for withholding information about the outbreak for too long .
The virus eventually killed 774 people and infected more than 8,000 . )
While Chinese authorities still believe the 2019-nCoV outbreak may have started at the market — with animals spreading the virus directly to humans — on January 20 , they confirmed that human-to-human transmission is also occurring .
On January 21 , the WHO ’ s Western Pacific Regional Office said on Twitter that the spread may involve “ sustained ” human-to-human transmission , meaning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ person to the next and then onward to others .
Knowing that , “ the scope of this outbreak expands massively , ” Peter Daszak , the president of EcoHealth Alliance , a US global health research organization working in China , told Vox .
2 ) How many people are sick ?
How many have died ?
As of January 25 , at least 1,354 people have fallen ill .
The vast majority of these patients ( 1,320 ) are in mainland China , where most ( 729 ) are concentrated in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The remaining cases are spread across more than 20 Chinese provinces and cities — including Shanghai , Guangdong , Hong Kong , and Beijing .
To get the latest numbers , check out this website from researchers at Johns Hopkins ; it collects data from various sources : the WHO , the CDC , the National Health Commission of the People ’ s Republic of China ( NHC ) , and two other sites .
( The map is embedded below . )
Additional cases have turned up in travelers in 11 other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Japan , Taiwan , Malaysia , Singapore , France , Australia , Nepal , Vietnam , and South Korea .
A total of 41 people have died .
But the real toll may be much higher .
Hong Kong- and London-based researchers who have modeled the outbreak ’ s potential suggest there are likely many more undetected cases — from 1,300 to more than 4,000 .
That ’ s in Wuhan alone .
And the risk of rapid spread is heightened , as hundreds of millions start to travel this week for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ January 25 .
3 ) How is the world responding ?
Chinese authorities first warned people to stop traveling in and out of Wuhan , and then said they would put the city under quarantine beginning January 23 , suspending public transport within Wuhan , and canceling flights and trains leaving the city .
It was an extraordinary move given that Wuhan has a population of 11 million , more people than New York City .
By the evening of January 24 , quarantine measures had expanded to 12 cities near Wuhan , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people .
According to the New York Times , the government said the quarantine was needed to “ effectively cut off the transmission of the virus , resolutely curb the spread of the epidemic , and ensure the safety and health of the people.
” But the evidence for travel restrictions during outbreaks shows , counterintuitively , that they don ’ t actually do much to stop the spread of disease .
Health officials in China and the region are now scrambling to find cases through screening at transportation hubs and follow-up with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ virus — an effort that ’ s supported by the WHO .
Other countries at risk of imported cases have also implemented screening measures .
In the US , the CDC — along with the Homeland Security Department ’ s Customs and Border Protection — began screening travelers from Wuhan for the virus at US airports on January 17 , and all travelers from the city will be funneled through airports that are looking out for cases .
4 ) What do we know about the US cases ?
The second case , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ woman in her 60s who lives in Chicago .
She returned from Wuhan on January 13 , and didn ’ t have any symptoms while traveling .
A few days after returning , when she started to feel ill , she called healthcare providers to report her symptoms and was admitted to hospital and placed in isolation .
Right now , she ’ s in stable condition .
The CDC would not say which hospital she ’ s in at this time , but they did say she ’ s had “ limited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coming home from China .
The first patient ’ s name also hasn ’ t been released , but we know he ’ s a resident of Snohomish County in Washington state .
We also know he recently traveled to Wuhan , returning to Seattle on January 15 , two days before airport screening started ( though the man didn ’ t have symptoms yet ) .
By January 19 , he reached out to health care providers to report his symptoms and travel history .
They suspected 2019-nCoV .
The man is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Regional Medical Center in Everett , Washington .
He told officials he didn ’ t visit markets in Wuhan , or have any contact with sick people .
The CDC and health officials in Washington are starting to do contact tracing to suss out if the man transmitted the virus to anyone else in the US .
So far , no one he had contact with has fallen ill. As of January 24 , CDC officials said they ’ ve screened over 2,000 people coming into the US for the disease on 200 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The agency also said it ’ s investigating 63 possible cases of coronavirus in 22 states .
So far , two have been confirmed positive and 11 negative .
5 ) How does the new coronavirus spread ?
We don ’ t yet know the exact way the virus is spreading , but we do know it ’ s part of a large family of viruses called coronaviruses , which mostly infect mammals , including bats .
Coronaviruses attack the respiratory system , sometimes targeting the cells deep within the lungs .
Only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and MERS , have evolved to infect humans .
According to the CDC , human coronaviruses are most commonly passed via : • Touching an object or surface with the virus on it , then touching your mouth , nose , or eyes before washing your hands As for how easily the new coronavirus spreads , that ’ s also unclear .
According to a preliminary estimate from WHO , at the moment , each individual has transmitted the virus to an average of 1.4 to 2.5 others .
That makes 2019-nCoV , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less contagious than SARS .
WHO also confirmed that there is “ fourth-generation ” spread of the virus in Wuhan , meaning there are cases where an individual has spread it to a second person , that second person to a third , and the third to a fourth .
Outside of Wuhan , they also have evidence of second-generation cases .
We also know at least 15 health care workers have been infected .
“ It ’ s unusual to get health care worker infections in outbreaks , ” explained Tom Inglesby @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Security of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health .
“ It ’ s always a sign of alarm when that happens , ” he added , because it means the virus may be easily transmitted , even in settings where people are taking precautions .
6 ) What are the symptoms of the new coronavirus ?
Two of the seven coronaviruses that infect humans , SARS and MERS , can cause severe pneumonia and even death .
The rest lead to milder symptoms , like a common cold .
Right now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2019-nCoV falls on that spectrum .
According to the CDC , it takes about two weeks on average for symptoms to start appearing .
An early report , published in the Lancet , had a good overview of symptoms — albeit , in a subset of the first 41 patients with confirmed 2019-nCoV in Wuhan .
The most common symptoms in this group were fever , cough , muscle pain , and fatigue ; less common were headache , diarrhea , and coughing up mucus or blood .
A little more than half @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and 63 percent had low levels of white blood cells .
As for the disease severity : 13 patients were admitted to an ICU and six died .
By January 22 , 68 percent of the patients had been discharged from hospital .
All patients had pneumonia and lung abnormalities on CT scans .
( A quick refresher : Pneumonia is an infection in the lungs that can be caused by a variety of organisms — bacteria , fungi , viruses , even parasites .
In this case , 2019-nCoV is causing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ air sacs to become inflamed and fill up with fluid or pus instead of air . )
In the Lancet group , most patients were men and over half didn ’ t have underlying diseases .
The median age was 49 .
So far , Chinese health officials have said the deaths are occurring in mostly older people with pre-existing health conditions .
It ’ s possible there are many more people with the virus who have very mild symptoms or who are asymptomatic , said Dr. Jeremy Farrar , director of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on global health .
If that ’ s the case , and there are thousands carrying 2019-nCoV while only a few people have died , this outbreak will look milder .
It ’ s also possible this virus winds up behaving like SARS , said Inglesby , which kills about one in 10 patients infected .
With SARS , “ We saw substantial spread in health care settings where health care workers became ill during care for patients , ” for example .
“ This is a very serious outbreak with the potential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s the likelihood this becomes a global public health emergency ?
The potential for this virus to spread further is so great that the WHO gathered an expert committee on Wednesday and Thursday to decide whether the emergence of 2019-nCoV constitutes a global public health emergency , a rare designation the agency gives outbreaks that pose an international threat .
By the end of Thursday , WHO ’ s Director-General , Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus , announced the committee ’ s decision that the outbreak doesn ’ t yet constitute one , mainly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outside of China , and China ’ s efforts to control the spread of the disease .
“ Make no mistake , this is an emergency in China .
But it has not yet become a global health emergency , ” Tedros explained .
He also vowed to reconvene the emergency committee in the coming days to review new data .
“ At this time , there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China , but that doesn ’ t mean it won ’ t happen , ” Tedros added .
Formally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concern , or PHEIC — pronounced “ fake ” — is defined as “ an extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response.
” In reality , it ’ s a political tool the WHO uses to sound the alarm about a serious disease that has caught the world off guard and put people ’ s health in danger .
It ’ s meant to draw countries ’ immediate attention , to galvanize @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spreading further across borders .
A key consideration in declaring a PHEIC is whether the disease threat is dire enough to risk countries enacting travel and trade restrictions .
Declarations can be devastating to local economies and are often associated with economic losses .
So they ’ re not taken lightly .
In fact , the WHO has only declared a public health emergency five times since the International Health Regulations , which govern global health emergency responses , were enacted in 2007 .
The first time was in 2009 , with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The second time was in May 2014 , when polio seemed to surge again , threatening the eradication effort .
The third time , in August 2014 , came as the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was growing out of control .
The fourth was related to Zika in 2016 .
And the fifth , in 2019 , was another outbreak of Ebola that ’ s ongoing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo .
8 ) How worried should I be about a pandemic ?
There are too many unknowns to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which animal carries this virus .
We don ’ t know how exactly it spreads .
We don ’ t know how easily it spreads among people , or how deadly and severe the virus is .
To put the cases and deaths so far into perspective , remember that seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 650,000 people each year .
“ Right now , you ’ re probably more likely to be catching flu than you are to be getting coronavirus , ” said Devi Sridhar , chair in global public health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so , the fact that cases are already turning up in so many countries — mere weeks after this outbreak was first declared — suggests we should brace ourselves for an escalation .
The WHO stopped short of recommending any travel or trade restrictions at this time , instead suggesting people take precautions — like making sure their hands are clean and that they don ’ t cough on others if they ’ re sick .
Messonnier of CDC said there are likely to be more cases in the coming days — in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is advising Americans to avoid non-essential travel to Wuhan .
As for those traveling to other parts of China , officials suggest avoiding contact with sick people , and practicing good hand hygiene .
“ This is a rapidly changing situation — abroad and domestically — and we ’ re still learning , ” Messonnier said .
That doesn ’ t , however , mean American officials expect the US to be inundated with dozens of patients or that the virus will spread broadly within the country .
It ’ s the major @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most at risk , according to a paper posted on January 14 in the Journal of Travel Medicine .
The top travel destinations out of Wuhan — and most at risk of spread of the infection — include Bangkok , Hong Kong , Tokyo , and Taipei .
A SARS-like virus has sickened more than 1,000 people in China , and made its way to the United States .
Vox ’ s Julia Belluz explains what ’ s known and what ’ s next .
Subscribe to Today , Explained wherever you get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Google Podcasts , Spotify , Stitcher , and ART19 .

On December 31 last year, China announced a small outbreak of a new coronavirus in the city of Wuhan involving 27 cases.
Flash-forward to Wednesday: The number of cases of 2019-nCoV, as the virus is known, has leaped past 6,000, and there are sick people in more than a dozen other countries.
That includes five confirmed cases in the United States.
Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said Friday that although the outbreak is a “very serious public health threat, the immediate risk to the US public is low at this time.”
Yet Tom Frieden, the former director of the CDC, told Vox he’s concerned by how infectious the virus is. “If the sustained human transmission and a high rate of severe illness are confirmed, then it clearly is an event of international concern.”
With information about 2019-nCoV — and its risk of spreading — evolving by the hour, we’ve answered basic questions about the outbreak here. We’ll be updating this story as more information becomes available.
1) Where did this coronavirus outbreak come from?
The outbreak was first reported to the World Health Organization by Chinese officials on December 31 in Wuhan, a city of 11 million in Hubei province. At that time, cases centered around Wuhan’s Huanan South China Seafood Market. Local health officials reported then that patients with the virus were “mainly business staff and purchasers” at the market, where vendors peddle seafood as well as animals such as birds and rabbits.
Scientists in China quickly ruled out known pathogens as the likely cause. The leading hypothesis then was that a yet-to-be-identified novel virus had spread to humans from one of the animals in the market.
By January 9, the state broadcaster, China Central Television, reported a major discovery: a new virus, known as 2019-nCoV. Many of the people who had become ill tested positive for 2019-nCoV. Two days later, Chinese scientists shared the genetic sequence of the new virus, and the WHO applauded China’s efforts for sharing information readily. (This transparency was a contrast to the SARS outbreak of 2003, when China was heavily criticized for withholding information about the outbreak for too long. The virus eventually killed 774 people and infected more than 8,000.)
By January 20, Chinese authorities confirmed that human-to-human transmission is also occurring. By January 23, the WHO confirmed that there is “fourth-generation” spread of the virus in Wuhan, meaning there are cases where an individual has spread it to a second person, that second person to a third, and the third to a fourth. (Outside of Wuhan, there’s also evidence of second-generation cases.) Knowing that, “the scope of this outbreak expands massively,” Peter Daszak, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a US global health research organization working in China, told Vox.
But the picture of the beginnings of this outbreak is changing. A recent study, published on January 24 in The Lancet, suggests the outbreak may not have actually started at the market. The first known patient had no market exposure. And that person became ill on December 1, nearly two weeks earlier than Wuhan health authorities had suggested about the first case.
2) How many people are sick? How many have died?
As of January 29, at least 6,057 people have fallen ill. The vast majority of these patients (5,970) are in mainland China, and most (3,554) are concentrated in Hubei province, home to Wuhan. The remaining cases are spread across more than 30 Chinese provinces and cities — including Shanghai, Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Beijing. To get the latest numbers, check out this website from researchers at Johns Hopkins; it collects data from various sources: the WHO, the CDC, the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China (NHC), and two other sites. (The map is embedded below.)
Source: Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering
Additional cases have turned up in travelers in more than a dozen other countries, including the US, Canada, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, France, Australia, Nepal, Vietnam, Germany, and South Korea. A total of 132 people have died.
But the real toll may be much higher.
Hong Kong University infectious disease researchers have estimated that the virus may be spreading person-to-person in all of China’s major mainland cities, and that there are already 44,000 cases in Wuhan alone. UK-based researchers who have modeled the outbreak’s potential suggest there are likely many more cases — as many as 9,700, according to the upper end of their estimate. And the risk of rapid spread is heightened, as hundreds of millions have been traveling for China’s Lunar New Year.
3) How is the world responding?
Chinese authorities first warned people to stop traveling in and out of Wuhan, and then said they would put the city under quarantine beginning January 23, suspending public transport within Wuhan, and canceling flights and trains leaving the city. It was an extraordinary move given that Wuhan has a population of 11 million, more people than New York City. By the evening of January 24, quarantine measures had expanded to 12 cities near Wuhan, effectively stifling the movement of 35 million people. By January 25, President Xi Jinping said the new virus posed a “grave” threat, and his government ordered travel agencies to suspend tours for Chinese citizens inside China and overseas. The same day, Hong Kong authorities declared a state of emergency over the virus and closed schools for three weeks, while Beijing suspended all inter-province buses.
According to the New York Times, the government said the quarantine was needed to “effectively cut off the transmission of the virus, resolutely curb the spread of the epidemic, and ensure the safety and health of the people.” But the evidence for travel restrictions during outbreaks shows, counterintuitively, that they don’t actually do much to stop the spread of disease.
Health officials in China and the region are now scrambling to find cases through screening at transportation hubs and follow-up with the contacts of those infected with the virus — an effort that’s supported by the WHO.
Other countries at risk of imported cases have also implemented extraordinary measures. In the US, the CDC — along with the Homeland Security Department’s Customs and Border Protection — began screening travelers from Wuhan for the virus at US airports on January 17, and all travelers from the city will be funneled through airports that are looking out for cases. The US government evacuated American diplomats and citizens from Wuhan. Its also advising Americans to avoid non-essential travel to China. Hong Kong has suspended ferry and train links with mainland China, and cancelled flights. Meanwhile, several airlines have begun cancelling flights to China — including Air Canada, British Airways, and United.
4) What do we know about the cases in the US?
Right now there are five confirmed cases in the US, according to the CDC. All involved travelers from Wuhan:
The first patient’s name hasn’t been released, but we know he’s a resident of Snohomish County in Washington state. We also know he’s in his 30s and he recently traveled to Wuhan, returning to Seattle on January 15, two days before airport screening started (though the man didn’t have symptoms yet). By January 19, he reached out to health care providers to report his symptoms and travel history. They suspected 2019-nCoV. The man is being treated for mild pneumonia at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Washington.
The second case, reported on January 24, involves a woman in her 60s who lives in Chicago. She returned from Wuhan on January 13 and didn’t have any symptoms while traveling. A few days after returning, when she started to feel ill, she called health care providers to report her symptoms and was admitted to a hospital and placed in isolation. She’s currently in stable condition.
The third, fourth, and fifth cases, reported over the weekend, concerned individuals in Orange County and LA County, California, and Maricopa County, Arizona, respectively. They had all recently traveled to Wuhan, and they’re receiving care in local hospitals.
As of January 25, CDC officials said they’ve screened over 2,000 people coming into the US for the disease on 200 flights, and found zero cases. The agency also said it’s investigating 100 possible cases of coronavirus in 26 states.
5) How does the new coronavirus spread?
We don’t yet know the exact way the virus is spreading, but we do know it’s part of a large family of viruses called coronaviruses, which mostly infect mammals, including bats. Coronaviruses attack the respiratory system, sometimes targeting the cells deep within the lungs. Only seven, including 2019-nCoV, SARS, and MERS, have evolved to infect humans.
According to the CDC, human coronaviruses are most commonly passed via:
Through coughing and sneezing
Close personal contact, including touching and shaking hands
Touching an object or surface with the virus on it, then touching your mouth, nose, or eyes before washing your hands
And rarely, through fecal contamination
As for how easily the new coronavirus spreads, that’s also unclear. According to a preliminary estimate from the WHO, at the moment, each individual has transmitted the virus to an average of 1.4 to 2.5 others. That makes 2019-nCoV, based on what we know now, less contagious than SARS. But there are many different estimates floating around as the situation evolves — and some suggest 2019-nCoV is even more contagious.
For the moment, the WHO estimates the virus’s incubation period — before symptoms start to show — is between two and 10 days, but it’s not yet known whether the virus can spread during that time.
We also know at least 15 health care workers have been infected. “It’s unusual to get health care worker infections in outbreaks,” explained Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “It’s always a sign of alarm when that happens,” he added, because it means the virus may be easily transmitted, even in settings where people are taking precautions.
6) What are the symptoms of the new coronavirus?
Two of the seven coronaviruses that infect humans, SARS and MERS, can cause severe pneumonia and even death. The rest lead to milder symptoms, like a common cold. At the moment, it’s not clear where 2019-nCoV falls on that spectrum.
An early report, published in the Lancet, provided a good overview of what’s known about symptoms so far — in a subset of the first 41 patients with confirmed 2019-nCoV in Wuhan. The most common symptoms in this group were fever, cough, muscle pain, and fatigue; less common were headache, diarrhea, and coughing up mucus or blood. A little more than half of the 41 patients had difficulty breathing, and 63 percent had low levels of white blood cells. As for the disease severity: 13 patients were admitted to an ICU and six died. By January 22, 68 percent of the patients had been discharged from the hospital.
All patients had pneumonia and lung abnormalities on CT scans. (A quick refresher: Pneumonia is an infection in the lungs that can be caused by a variety of organisms — bacteria, fungi, viruses, even parasites. In this case, 2019-nCoV is causing the infection and leading the lungs’ air sacs to become inflamed and fill up with fluid or pus instead of air.)
In the Lancet group, most patients were men and over half didn’t have underlying diseases. The median age was 49.
It’s possible there are many more people with the virus who have very mild symptoms or who are asymptomatic, said Dr. Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, a research charity focused on global health. If that’s the case, and there are thousands carrying 2019-nCoV while only a few people have died, this outbreak will look milder.
It’s also possible this virus winds up behaving like SARS, said Inglesby, which kills about one in 10 patients infected. With SARS, “We saw substantial spread in health care settings where health care workers became ill during care for patients,” for example. “This is a very serious outbreak with the potential for widespread transmission.”
7) What’s the likelihood this becomes a global public health emergency?
The potential for this virus to spread further is so great that the WHO gathered an expert committee on Wednesday and Thursday last week to decide whether the emergence of 2019-nCoV constitutes a global public health emergency, a rare designation the agency gives outbreaks that pose an international threat.
By the end of Thursday, the WHO’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced the committee’s decision that the outbreak doesn’t yet constitute one, mainly because of the limited number of cases outside of China, and China’s efforts to control the spread of the disease.
“Make no mistake, this is an emergency in China. But it has not yet become a global health emergency,” Tedros explained. He also vowed to reconvene the emergency committee in the coming days to review new data. “At this time, there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen,” Tedros added.
Formally, a public health emergency of international concern, or PHEIC — pronounced “fake” — is defined as “an extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response.” In reality, it’s a political tool the WHO uses to sound the alarm about a serious disease that has caught the world off guard and put people’s health in danger. It’s meant to draw countries’ immediate attention, to galvanize resources, and stop the disease from spreading further across borders.
A key consideration in declaring a PHEIC is whether the disease threat is dire enough to risk countries enacting travel and trade restrictions. Declarations can be devastating to local economies and are often associated with economic losses. So they’re not taken lightly. In fact, the WHO has only declared a public health emergency five times since the International Health Regulations, which govern global health emergency responses, were enacted in 2007.
The first time was in 2009, with the outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic. The second time was in May 2014, when polio seemed to surge again, threatening the eradication effort. The third time, in August 2014, came as the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was growing out of control. The fourth was related to Zika in 2016. And the fifth, in 2019, was another outbreak of Ebola that’s ongoing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
8) How worried should I be about a pandemic?
There are too many unknowns to say. We don’t know which animal carries this virus. We don’t know how exactly it spreads. We don’t know how easily it spreads among people, or how deadly and severe the virus is.
To put the cases and deaths so far into perspective, remember that seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 650,000 people each year. “Right now, you’re probably more likely to be catching flu than you are to be getting coronavirus,” said Devi Sridhar, chair in global public health at the University of Edinburgh.
Even so, the fact that cases are already turning up in so many countries — mere weeks after this outbreak was first declared — suggests we should brace ourselves for an escalation.
Messonnier of the CDC said there are likely to be more cases in the coming days — in the US and beyond. “This is a rapidly changing situation — abroad and domestically — and we’re still learning,” Messonnier added.
That doesn’t, however, mean American officials expect the US to be inundated with dozens of patients or that the virus will spread broadly within the country. It’s the major cities in and around China that are most at risk, according to a paper posted on January 14 in the Journal of Travel Medicine. The top travel destinations out of Wuhan — and most at risk of spread of the infection — include Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Taipei.
Listen to Today, Explained
A SARS-like virus has sickened thousands in China, and made its way to the United States. Vox’s Julia Belluz explains what’s known and what’s next.
Subscribe to Today, Explained wherever you get your podcasts, including: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and ART19.