democracynow--2020-04-16--"Pure Baloney": Zoologist Debunks Trump's COVID-19 Origin Theory, Explains Animal-Human Transmission

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , here in New York , the epicenter of the pandemic , with my co-host Nermeen Shaikh , usually sitting right here at my side but joining us from her home to keep us all safe and stop community spread .
Hi , Nermeen .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : Hi , Amy .
And welcome to our listeners and viewers around the country and around the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we ’ re going to begin right away with our first segment .
The White House is unveiling new guidelines today aimed at rolling back states ’ stay-at-home orders protecting against the spread of coronavirus .
President Trump ’ s call to wind down social distancing came as the United States recorded more than 2,400 deaths in just 24 hours , the highest one-day death toll for any nation since the start of the pandemic .
Across the United States , there are nearly 640,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 , though the true @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the critical shortage of tests .
At least 31,000 people have died of the disease in just a matter of weeks .
Despite this , President Trump spent the last few days waging a war on journalists , public health experts and science .
On Wednesday , Trump suggested , without evidence , that World Health Organization officials conspired to hide the truth about the coronavirus .
His comments came one day after he announced the U.S. would begin withholding hundreds of millions of dollars of funding for the U.N. body .
At @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fueled the fringe theory promoted by Fox News that the virus came from a lab in Wuhan , China .
This is Fox News reporter John Roberts questioning Trump at Wednesday ’ s press briefing .
AMY GOODMAN : This came just one day after the Pentagon ’ s top general , Mark Milley , said the coronavirus likely came from natural sources , not a Chinese lab .
On Thursday , China ’ s Foreign Ministry spokesperson responded .
AMY GOODMAN : The scientific journal The Lancet has said the virus seems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for more on the origins of the coronavirus , Trump ’ s response , and where we go from here , we ’ re joined by a zoologist who has long studied diseases that cross the animal-human divide , and who for years has been sounding the alarm about a coming pandemic .
Dr. Peter Daszak is with us .
He ’ s a disease ecologist , the president of EcoHealth Alliance , a nonprofit that works globally to identify and study our vulnerabilities to emerging infectious disease .
EcoHealth Alliance has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end of the SARS outbreak in 2004 .
This coronavirus is really called SARS2 .
He ’ s joining us from the Hudson River Valley in New York .
Welcome to Democracy Now !
It ’ s great to have you with us .
So , if you can unpack what we just heard , it goes to the issue of the origins of the coronavirus .
Especially interesting that President Trump is raising this now as he ’ s being seriously attacked for the United States ’ lack of action and delay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at as many sectors as he can .
But talk about the origins of the coronavirus , Dr. Daszak .
PETER DASZAK : Yeah , great to be here .
Look , first , the idea that this virus escaped from a lab is just pure baloney .
It ’ s simply not true .
I ’ ve been working with that lab for 15 years .
And the samples collected were collected by me and others in collaboration with our Chinese colleagues .
They ’ re some of the best scientists in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ isolate in the lab .
There was no cultured virus that ’ s anything related to SARS coronavirus 2 .
So it ’ s just not possible .
And like you say , it ’ s really a politicization of the origins of a pandemic , and it ’ s really unfortunate .
The stories , as President Trump said he ’ s been hearing , have been around since day one of the outbreak , and they ’ re around in every outbreak .
Every single outbreak of a novel virus , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this has been manufactured in a lab.
” In fact , a few weeks ago , when this started circulating , I googled ” HIV is man-made.
” Do it yourself and see .
There are people out there who still believe this is a bioengineered virus that spread around the world .
It ’ s just really unfortunate .
And I don ’ t really know why these conspiracy theories get such traction .
I think the people just have trouble understanding what ’ s going on on the planet .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emerging diseases .
About 75 % of every new emerging disease — think about Ebola , H1N1 flu , H5N1 flu , you know , these pandemic viruses that emerge — originate in wildlife .
Every species of wildlife carries viruses that are a natural part of its biology , a bit like we have the common cold and herpes , cold sores .
They don ’ t really do much to the species in the wild , but sometimes when we make contact with them , we pick up those viruses , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ times they ’ re not , but every now and again we get a lethal virus .
And we estimate there are 1.7 million unknown viruses in wildlife , so there ’ s a lot of diversity out there that could emerge in the future .
And really , we need to be looking at that , instead of pointing fingers for political gain at scientists who are working to benefit public health .
The scientists in those labs are right now , today , working to see if vaccines and drugs will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This sort of battle doesn ’ t help in a pandemic .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : Dr. Daszak , could you say more about the origins of this specific pandemic ?
What do we know about its origins ?
Of course , many believe , as you ’ ve said , that it originated in bats .
But explain how it moved from bats to humans .
Was it at the Wuhan market ?
And what did that involve ?
PETER DASZAK : Yeah , it ’ s — we don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can trace back the origins by looking at the genetic signal within the virus itself .
So we sequence out the gene from the virus , the genome , and then we compare it to others .
And when we do that , we see that the viruses in people , the closest relative of those are from bats .
This is not unusual .
Bats happen to carry a lot of different viral species .
There are many different bats around the world that carry their own viruses .
We make contact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t see them .
They fly at night , for instance .
And we pick up their viruses .
SARS coronavirus , the original virus , emerged from bats .
Ebola virus is a bat-origin virus .
Rabies and many others .
How did a virus like this get from a bat to a human ?
It is a very strange thing when we try and think about it .
But first of all , in Southeast Asia , there is a huge diversity of bats .
People live out in rural areas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re exposed every night when bats fly over them , urinate , defecate , maybe onto their food or into their drink .
People go into bat caves .
People go in for various reasons .
They go in to dig out the bat guano , the feces , and they use it as a fertilizer , just like we used to do many years ago with bird feces .
They go into caves to shelter from the rain .
They ’ re farmers .
They ’ re subsistence farmers hunting and eating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way .
People do eat bats .
It ’ s true .
And they eat bats all around the world .
It ’ s a free source of protein .
If you ’ re out there in a bat cave , they ’ re pretty easy to catch .
And these are the ways people get exposed .
Now , how did it get into the market ?
We know for sure that the Wuhan market was part of this outbreak , but we think that the first few cases weren ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not uncommon .
We ’ ve seen this with many , many other disease outbreaks , new viruses that emerge .
They trickle out from rural areas through a person getting infected maybe in Hunan province and then moving into Wuhan , that maybe they ’ re part of the wildlife trade .
Maybe a farmer got infected , or a farmer ’ s animals , and they were shipped into the markets .
These wet markets aren ’ t just places to sell wildlife ; they ’ re places where people congregate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They circulate around .
They ’ re really good places for a virus to spread .
And if a person brings it in , or an animal , that virus will spread .
And it looks like that ’ s what ’ s happened here .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : And could you also explain — you have talked about the environmental causes of this , what ’ s called a virus spillover , like — infectious diseases like COVID-19 , causes such as environmental , causes such as deforestation , the loss of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ve also said that people are developing a lot of new towns in this region of southwest China with a lot of high-speed train lines .
And you warn that we ’ re going to see more pandemics like this as long as such rampant development continues .
So , could you explain what the link is between development and the spread of these infectious diseases ?
PETER DASZAK : Well , we ’ ve done the science on this .
We ’ ve been working on this for 20 years .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ its origin , from the scientific literature .
And then we tested , with mathematical models , what ’ s driving that , what are the causes that could underlie the emergence of these new diseases .
And what we found is they emerge in places where human populations are very dense and growing .
They emerge in the tropics mainly , because that ’ s where the wildlife diversity is , and the viruses that become pandemic come from wildlife .
And the other key factor is land-use change , people moving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ habitat , building roads into a forest for a mine or for a logging camp .
There are many , many examples of diseases , like Ebola , SARS and others , HIV itself , from this .
And that ’ s a global trend that will drive the rise of future pandemics .
Now , we ’ re not saying that we ’ ve got to stop every modern aspect of development .
We can do these things , but we need to do them in a smarter way , a more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ start treating pandemics as a risk of doing these things around the planet .
We ’ ve got to reassess our relationship with the environment and reduce our ecological footprint .
It ’ s to the benefit of conservation .
It ’ ll reduce climate change .
It will also stop us getting sick .
And I think that ’ s a really important point .
For folks on the right who aren ’ t interested in conservation or climate change , what about your own health ?
You know , we are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sick .
And that ’ s really the message that needs to come through from this , because if we just treat this as another disease , wait for a vaccine and then think , “ Great , it ’ s all over , ” well , I ’ ve got news .
There are 1.7 million more viruses out there that will be emerging in the future .
We can either wait for them to emerge and get sick and have another global recession , or we can get out there and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the planet a little bit healthier .
AMY GOODMAN : Let me ask you about a recent tweet , Dr. Daszak .
You refute the widespread belief that COVID-19 is a black swan event , pointing to a 2013 Wired article that said , quote , “ there are bats carrying a virus that can directly infect people , and cause another SARS pandemic.
” If you could comment on that , and also the idea that if this came from a virology lab — there are labs , of course , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States — it doesn ’ t have to be a conspiracy theory that released on the world , but the idea of perhaps there weren ’ t the proper safety precautions or someone inside the lab somehow got infected , that can happen in any virology lab in the world ?
PETER DASZAK : Yeah , look , I mean , we ’ ve been raising the flag on these viruses ever since SARS , for 15 years .
We went out to work in China with our colleagues out there , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Where did SARS come from ?
” It was an alarm call , SARS , because we had 8,000 people infected , 10 % of them died , a very high death rate .
But it didn ’ t go to a true global pandemic like COVID-19 .
So we went out to China , and we started looking into wildlife origins of this virus .
And what we found was really surprising : a huge diversity , dozens , hundreds of bat-origin coronaviruses .
We found evidence that they were continually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at rural populations in southwest China and found 3 % of them had antibodies to these viruses .
And we estimate that the exposure across Southeast Asia is about 1 million to 7 million people a year , just by living in rural areas where bats live .
So , it ’ s not just an expectation that we ’ ll have more events .
It ’ s a certainty .
And we started saying that .
We looked at the viruses bats carried , and we showed that they can actually already @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They can cause disease , like SARS , in some of the mouse models for SARS .
And they evade the vaccines that were being developed at the time .
And this is not unusual .
You know , there are many other viruses .
There are viruses related to Ebola that we don ’ t know much about .
We don ’ t know if they infect people .
There are viruses related to influenza out there that we don ’ t know what they do in people .
But the way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wait for them to emerge and make us sick .
The way to do this is to get out there ahead of the curve , find out what ’ s out there in wildlife , find out who ’ s at risk , work with the people on the frontline and reduce that risk .
And , you know , that ’ s a really important public health message .
It ’ s also a really important message for international development .
These viruses tend to emerge in poor countries in the tropics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wildlife live , countries that are less able to deal with outbreaks .
So , sending out taxpayer money to those countries is very unpopular with the current administration , but it not only protects them , it protects us .
It ’ s a right-wing agenda and a left-wing agenda .
Now , on issue of whether this could be a lab release , well , this is the problem with conspiracy theories , you know ?
It ’ s impossible to say that it didn ’ t happen , and it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you showed video evidence of every hour of everybody working in that lab .
And there are video cameras up there .
These are biosecure labs with very high-tech , sophisticated security systems .
Even if you showed all the notebooks , the conspiracy folks would continue to say , “ Well , it ’ s a cover-up .
Clearly something happened , and these are doctored notebooks , doctored videotapes.
” The point is that , let ’ s look at a balance of probability .
That ’ s what you have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hundred technicians and scientists working in these labs .
They do not have a problem with staff or with security or with loose controls .
These are very well-run labs .
They ’ ve been inspected by the U.S. CDC , by people working in BSL-4 labs , high-security labs , in the U.S. , in France and internationally .
They ’ re accredited by the U.S .
So , it ’ s ironic that now we ’ re saying they ’ re not very well organized .
We actually inspected them properly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ know , the cables that were reported in the — NERMEEN SHAIKH : Dr. Daszak , if I may just interrupt , just we only have a minute , and this is a question that we have to get to before we move to our next segment , which is on India .
You know , there was widespread belief that COVID-19 would cause hundreds of thousands of deaths in the developing world , from India to Brazil , and that millions would be infected .
But that ’ s not yet happened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be the case , and whether we should expect something different in the future ?
We have a minute .
PETER DASZAK : Well , yeah , look , rich countries test more .
We can afford it .
And poor countries don ’ t .
And what I expect is that there are a huge number of hidden community transmission in poorer countries around the world , that is going to create an incredible problem in the future .
Who ’ s going to deal with that problem ?
Countries that can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seek support from their colleagues and their allies around the world .
It ’ s going to go through the WHO , the very organization we heard yesterday we ’ re going to pull funding from .
It ’ s a travesty .
And again , if we let that happen , we will see this outbreak continuing to cause problems in the developing world , and it won ’ t go away .
And it will affect us .
We ’ re never going to be free from a pandemic if we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ countries that are out there with travelers coming back into the U.S .
So , again , it ’ s misguided .
It ’ s shortsighted .
And I really hope we address this quickly and aggressively , because , you know , I really feel that it ’ s going to be impossible to do social distancing in the favelas of Rio and the slums and some of the places where people are already disenfranchised because they ’ re considered illegal squatters .
So , there really are going to be issues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poorer countries , for sure .
AMY GOODMAN : Dr. Peter Daszak , we want to thank you so much for being with us , disease ecologist , president of EcoHealth Alliance , a nonprofit that works globally to identify and study our vulnerabilities to emerging infectious disease .
When we come back , we speak with the acclaimed author Arundhati Roy about the coronavirus in India and the political implications of the crisis .
She says , “ The pandemic is a portal.
” Stay with us .
AMY GOODMAN : Medical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for their patients .
Kerala is where our next guest , Arundhati Roy , was raised .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, here in New York, the epicenter of the pandemic, with my co-host Nermeen Shaikh, usually sitting right here at my side but joining us from her home to keep us all safe and stop community spread. Hi, Nermeen.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Hi, Amy. And welcome to our listeners and viewers around the country and around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to begin right away with our first segment. The White House is unveiling new guidelines today aimed at rolling back states’ stay-at-home orders protecting against the spread of coronavirus. President Trump’s call to wind down social distancing came as the United States recorded more than 2,400 deaths in just 24 hours, the highest one-day death toll for any nation since the start of the pandemic. Across the United States, there are nearly 640,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, though the true number is likely far higher due to the critical shortage of tests. At least 31,000 people have died of the disease in just a matter of weeks.
Despite this, President Trump spent the last few days waging a war on journalists, public health experts and science. On Wednesday, Trump suggested, without evidence, that World Health Organization officials conspired to hide the truth about the coronavirus. His comments came one day after he announced the U.S. would begin withholding hundreds of millions of dollars of funding for the U.N. body. At the same news briefing, President Trump fueled the fringe theory promoted by Fox News that the virus came from a lab in Wuhan, China. This is Fox News reporter John Roberts questioning Trump at Wednesday’s press briefing.
JOHN ROBERTS: Mr. President, multiple sources are telling Fox News today that the United States government now has high confidence that while the coronavirus is a naturally occurring virus, it emanated from a virology lab in Wuhan, that because of lax safety protocols, an intern was infected, who later infected her boyfriend and then went to the wet market in Wuhan, where it began to spread. Does that correspond with what you have heard from officials?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I don’t want to say that, John, but I will tell you, more and more we’re hearing the story. And we’ll see. When you say multiple sources, though, there’s a case where you can use the word “sources.” But we are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation that happened.
AMY GOODMAN: This came just one day after the Pentagon’s top general, Mark Milley, said the coronavirus likely came from natural sources, not a Chinese lab. On Thursday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson responded.
ZHAO LIJIAN: [translated] China’s position on the origin and means of transmission of the novel coronavirus is clear. We will always believe this is a scientific issue, which should be studied by scientists and medical experts. I would like to remind you, the head of WHO has repeatedly said there’s no evidence that the coronavirus was made in a lab. Many well-known medical experts in the world also believe that claims of the so-called laboratory leaks have no scientific basis.
AMY GOODMAN: The scientific journal The Lancet has said the virus seems to have come from wildlife.
Well, for more on the origins of the coronavirus, Trump’s response, and where we go from here, we’re joined by a zoologist who has long studied diseases that cross the animal-human divide, and who for years has been sounding the alarm about a coming pandemic. Dr. Peter Daszak is with us. He’s a disease ecologist, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that works globally to identify and study our vulnerabilities to emerging infectious disease. EcoHealth Alliance has been studying coronaviruses in China since the end of the SARS outbreak in 2004. This coronavirus is really called SARS2. He’s joining us from the Hudson River Valley in New York.
Welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. So, if you can unpack what we just heard, it goes to the issue of the origins of the coronavirus. Especially interesting that President Trump is raising this now as he’s being seriously attacked for the United States’ lack of action and delay, and so he is striking out at as many sectors as he can. But talk about the origins of the coronavirus, Dr. Daszak.
PETER DASZAK: Yeah, great to be here.
Look, first, the idea that this virus escaped from a lab is just pure baloney. It’s simply not true. I’ve been working with that lab for 15 years. And the samples collected were collected by me and others in collaboration with our Chinese colleagues. They’re some of the best scientists in the world. There was no viral isolate in the lab. There was no cultured virus that’s anything related to SARS coronavirus 2. So it’s just not possible.
And like you say, it’s really a politicization of the origins of a pandemic, and it’s really unfortunate. The stories, as President Trump said he’s been hearing, have been around since day one of the outbreak, and they’re around in every outbreak. Every single outbreak of a novel virus, somebody somewhere says, “Well, this has been manufactured in a lab.” In fact, a few weeks ago, when this started circulating, I googled ”HIV is man-made.” Do it yourself and see. There are people out there who still believe this is a bioengineered virus that spread around the world. It’s just really unfortunate. And I don’t really know why these conspiracy theories get such traction. I think the people just have trouble understanding what’s going on on the planet.
We’ve been studying the origin of emerging diseases. About 75% of every new emerging disease — think about Ebola, H1N1 flu, H5N1 flu, you know, these pandemic viruses that emerge — originate in wildlife. Every species of wildlife carries viruses that are a natural part of its biology, a bit like we have the common cold and herpes, cold sores. They don’t really do much to the species in the wild, but sometimes when we make contact with them, we pick up those viruses, and they can be lethal. Most times they’re not, but every now and again we get a lethal virus. And we estimate there are 1.7 million unknown viruses in wildlife, so there’s a lot of diversity out there that could emerge in the future.
And really, we need to be looking at that, instead of pointing fingers for political gain at scientists who are working to benefit public health. The scientists in those labs are right now, today, working to see if vaccines and drugs will kill the coronavirus to save our lives. This sort of battle doesn’t help in a pandemic.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Daszak, could you say more about the origins of this specific pandemic? What do we know about its origins? Of course, many believe, as you’ve said, that it originated in bats. But explain how it moved from bats to humans. Was it at the Wuhan market? And what did that involve?
PETER DASZAK: Yeah, it’s — we don’t really know for sure, but we can trace back the origins by looking at the genetic signal within the virus itself. So we sequence out the gene from the virus, the genome, and then we compare it to others. And when we do that, we see that the viruses in people, the closest relative of those are from bats. This is not unusual. Bats happen to carry a lot of different viral species. There are many different bats around the world that carry their own viruses. We make contact with them. Often we don’t see them. They fly at night, for instance. And we pick up their viruses. SARS coronavirus, the original virus, emerged from bats. Ebola virus is a bat-origin virus. Rabies and many others.
How did a virus like this get from a bat to a human? It is a very strange thing when we try and think about it. But first of all, in Southeast Asia, there is a huge diversity of bats. People live out in rural areas close to bat caves. They’re exposed every night when bats fly over them, urinate, defecate, maybe onto their food or into their drink. People go into bat caves. People go in for various reasons. They go in to dig out the bat guano, the feces, and they use it as a fertilizer, just like we used to do many years ago with bird feces. They go into caves to shelter from the rain. They’re farmers. They’re subsistence farmers hunting and eating wildlife, so they get exposed that way. People do eat bats. It’s true. And they eat bats all around the world. It’s a free source of protein. If you’re out there in a bat cave, they’re pretty easy to catch. And these are the ways people get exposed.
Now, how did it get into the market? We know for sure that the Wuhan market was part of this outbreak, but we think that the first few cases weren’t in the market. And this is not uncommon. We’ve seen this with many, many other disease outbreaks, new viruses that emerge. They trickle out from rural areas through a person getting infected maybe in Hunan province and then moving into Wuhan, that maybe they’re part of the wildlife trade. Maybe a farmer got infected, or a farmer’s animals, and they were shipped into the markets. These wet markets aren’t just places to sell wildlife; they’re places where people congregate. They come in in droves. They circulate around. They’re really good places for a virus to spread. And if a person brings it in, or an animal, that virus will spread. And it looks like that’s what’s happened here.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And could you also explain — you have talked about the environmental causes of this, what’s called a virus spillover, like — infectious diseases like COVID-19, causes such as environmental, causes such as deforestation, the loss of biodiversity, and wildlife poaching. You’ve also said that people are developing a lot of new towns in this region of southwest China with a lot of high-speed train lines. And you warn that we’re going to see more pandemics like this as long as such rampant development continues. So, could you explain what the link is between development and the spread of these infectious diseases?
PETER DASZAK: Well, we’ve done the science on this. We’ve been working on this for 20 years. We tracked every known emerging disease to its origin, from the scientific literature. And then we tested, with mathematical models, what’s driving that, what are the causes that could underlie the emergence of these new diseases. And what we found is they emerge in places where human populations are very dense and growing. They emerge in the tropics mainly, because that’s where the wildlife diversity is, and the viruses that become pandemic come from wildlife.
And the other key factor is land-use change, people moving into new areas, encroachment into wildlife habitat, building roads into a forest for a mine or for a logging camp. There are many, many examples of diseases, like Ebola, SARS and others, HIV itself, from this. And that’s a global trend that will drive the rise of future pandemics.
Now, we’re not saying that we’ve got to stop every modern aspect of development. We can do these things, but we need to do them in a smarter way, a more sustainable way. And we need to start treating pandemics as a risk of doing these things around the planet. We’ve got to reassess our relationship with the environment and reduce our ecological footprint. It’s to the benefit of conservation. It’ll reduce climate change. It will also stop us getting sick. And I think that’s a really important point. For folks on the right who aren’t interested in conservation or climate change, what about your own health? You know, we are making ourselves sick by making the planet sick.
And that’s really the message that needs to come through from this, because if we just treat this as another disease, wait for a vaccine and then think, “Great, it’s all over,” well, I’ve got news. There are 1.7 million more viruses out there that will be emerging in the future. We can either wait for them to emerge and get sick and have another global recession, or we can get out there and readdress our relationship with wildlife and make the planet a little bit healthier.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about a recent tweet, Dr. Daszak. You refute the widespread belief that COVID-19 is a black swan event, pointing to a 2013 Wired article that said, quote, “there are bats carrying a virus that can directly infect people, and cause another SARS pandemic.” If you could comment on that, and also the idea that if this came from a virology lab — there are labs, of course, in China, there are labs in the United States — it doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theory that released on the world, but the idea of perhaps there weren’t the proper safety precautions or someone inside the lab somehow got infected, that can happen in any virology lab in the world?
PETER DASZAK: Yeah, look, I mean, we’ve been raising the flag on these viruses ever since SARS, for 15 years. We went out to work in China with our colleagues out there, with a specific goal of saying, “Where did SARS come from?” It was an alarm call, SARS, because we had 8,000 people infected, 10% of them died, a very high death rate. But it didn’t go to a true global pandemic like COVID-19. So we went out to China, and we started looking into wildlife origins of this virus.
And what we found was really surprising: a huge diversity, dozens, hundreds of bat-origin coronaviruses. We found evidence that they were continually spilling over into people. We looked at rural populations in southwest China and found 3% of them had antibodies to these viruses. And we estimate that the exposure across Southeast Asia is about 1 million to 7 million people a year, just by living in rural areas where bats live. So, it’s not just an expectation that we’ll have more events. It’s a certainty. And we started saying that.
We looked at the viruses bats carried, and we showed that they can actually already infect human cells in the lab. They can cause disease, like SARS, in some of the mouse models for SARS. And they evade the vaccines that were being developed at the time. And this is not unusual. You know, there are many other viruses. There are viruses related to Ebola that we don’t know much about. We don’t know if they infect people. There are viruses related to influenza out there that we don’t know what they do in people.
But the way to deal with this is not to wait for them to emerge and make us sick. The way to do this is to get out there ahead of the curve, find out what’s out there in wildlife, find out who’s at risk, work with the people on the frontline and reduce that risk. And, you know, that’s a really important public health message. It’s also a really important message for international development. These viruses tend to emerge in poor countries in the tropics, just by the nature of where wildlife live, countries that are less able to deal with outbreaks. So, sending out taxpayer money to those countries is very unpopular with the current administration, but it not only protects them, it protects us. It’s a right-wing agenda and a left-wing agenda.
Now, on issue of whether this could be a lab release, well, this is the problem with conspiracy theories, you know? It’s impossible to say that it didn’t happen, and it never will be possible, even if you showed video evidence of every hour of everybody working in that lab. And there are video cameras up there. These are biosecure labs with very high-tech, sophisticated security systems. Even if you showed all the notebooks, the conspiracy folks would continue to say, “Well, it’s a cover-up. Clearly something happened, and these are doctored notebooks, doctored videotapes.”
The point is that, let’s look at a balance of probability. That’s what you have to do. We have a few hundred technicians and scientists working in these labs. They do not have a problem with staff or with security or with loose controls. These are very well-run labs. They’ve been inspected by the U.S. CDC, by people working in BSL-4 labs, high-security labs, in the U.S., in France and internationally. They’re accredited by the U.S. So, it’s ironic that now we’re saying they’re not very well organized. We actually inspected them properly and allowed them to open. You know, the cables that were reported in the —
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Daszak —
PETER DASZAK: Sorry, yeah.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Daszak, if I may just interrupt, just we only have a minute, and this is a question that we have to get to before we move to our next segment, which is on India. You know, there was widespread belief that COVID-19 would cause hundreds of thousands of deaths in the developing world, from India to Brazil, and that millions would be infected. But that’s not yet happened. Your response to why that might be the case, and whether we should expect something different in the future? We have a minute.
PETER DASZAK: Well, yeah, look, rich countries test more. We can afford it. And poor countries don’t. And what I expect is that there are a huge number of hidden community transmission in poorer countries around the world, that is going to create an incredible problem in the future.
Who’s going to deal with that problem? Countries that can’t afford to are going to seek support from their colleagues and their allies around the world. It’s going to go through the WHO, the very organization we heard yesterday we’re going to pull funding from. It’s a travesty. And again, if we let that happen, we will see this outbreak continuing to cause problems in the developing world, and it won’t go away. And it will affect us. We’re never going to be free from a pandemic if we allow a virus to rage uncontrollably in countries that are out there with travelers coming back into the U.S. So, again, it’s misguided. It’s shortsighted.
And I really hope we address this quickly and aggressively, because, you know, I really feel that it’s going to be impossible to do social distancing in the favelas of Rio and the slums and some of the places where people are already disenfranchised because they’re considered illegal squatters. So, there really are going to be issues around the world with this coronavirus in poorer countries, for sure.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Peter Daszak, we want to thank you so much for being with us, disease ecologist, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that works globally to identify and study our vulnerabilities to emerging infectious disease.
When we come back, we speak with the acclaimed author Arundhati Roy about the coronavirus in India and the political implications of the crisis. She says, “The pandemic is a portal.” Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Medical workers in Kerala, India, dancing for their patients. Kerala is where our next guest, Arundhati Roy, was raised.


democracynow--2020-04-16--Headlines for April 16, 2020

Headlines for April 16, 2020

The White House is unveiling new guidelines today aimed at rolling back states ’ stay-at-home orders protecting against the spread of the coronavirus .
President Trump ’ s call to wind down social distancing came as the United States recorded more than 2,400 deaths in just 24 hours — the highest one-day total for any nation since the start of the pandemic .
Across the U.S. , there are over 644,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 , though the true number is likely far higher due to a critical shortage of tests .
More than 28,500 have died of the disease @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Despite that , President Trump said some states could begin relaxing social distancing restrictions before the end of April .
The plan has drawn intense fire from medical professionals — and even corporate executives tapped by Trump to advise on reopening the economy .
They said Wednesday far more testing needs to be in place before workers can return to factories , schools , stores and office spaces .
This week , researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health warned that unless a vaccine becomes widely available , social distancing may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a surge of COVID-19 cases that could break the U.S. healthcare system .

The White House is unveiling new guidelines today aimed at rolling back states’ stay-at-home orders protecting against the spread of the coronavirus. President Trump’s call to wind down social distancing came as the United States recorded more than 2,400 deaths in just 24 hours — the highest one-day total for any nation since the start of the pandemic.
President Donald Trump: “The battle continues, but the data suggests that nationwide we have passed the peak on new cases.”
Across the U.S., there are over 644,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, though the true number is likely far higher due to a critical shortage of tests. More than 28,500 have died of the disease nationwide in just a matter of weeks. Despite that, President Trump said some states could begin relaxing social distancing restrictions before the end of April. The plan has drawn intense fire from medical professionals — and even corporate executives tapped by Trump to advise on reopening the economy. They said Wednesday far more testing needs to be in place before workers can return to factories, schools, stores and office spaces.
This week, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health warned that unless a vaccine becomes widely available, social distancing may have to extend until 2022 to prevent a surge of COVID-19 cases that could break the U.S. healthcare system.


democracynow--2020-04-17--Frontline Medical Workers Protest New NYC Policy Demanding Doctor's Notes When They Are Sick

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
We end today ’ s show here in New York City , where the death toll from the coronavirus has passed 11,000 .
Every night at 7 p.m. , New Yorkers take to their balconies , fire escapes , windows to cheer for medical workers and other essential workers on the frontlines of this crisis .
But inside the hospitals , medical staff are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and protections while on the job .
After a weeks-long effort demanding more personal protective equipment , New York City health workers now have a new challenge ahead of them : a new policy at the city ’ s public hospitals that requires medical workers who call in sick to produce a doctor ’ s note .
The directive was sent out Friday by Health & Hospitals Corporation , which runs the 11 public hospitals and has lost at least five nurses to COVID-19 .
The memo , which was first reported on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in part , quote , “ In some places we have also identified very high rates of call outs and absences that do not appear to be consistent with patterns of COVID infection , ” unquote .
Medical workers say the policy puts an unnecessary and dangerous burden on already overworked and at-risk staffers who are showing up every day to treat the sick .
This afternoon , nurses from Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx will rally outside the hospital .
We ’ re joined now by an ER pediatric nurse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ today ’ s protest .
He ’ s a member of the board of directors of the New York State Nurses Association .
Sean , it ’ s great to have you back with us .
Can you talk about this latest memo and the conditions you ’ re facing in your hospital ?
And , of course , you work with nurses all over the city .
SEAN PETTY : Yeah .
Well , I guess I just want to , first of all , say that , you know , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coaster that we ’ ve been on over the last month .
And I think we ’ re just reaching a point , in the last week , where we ’ re able to breathe a little bit of a sigh of relief .
You know , it seems like the COVID cases are slowing into our emergency rooms .
We ’ re becoming more successful at extubating patients and keeping patients alive .
And we ’ re able — at Jacobi , we ’ re able to get transfers from other hospitals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just are breathing a sigh of relief .
And it ’ s given us a moment to pause and think about just how traumatic and devastating this last month has been for our lives .
We ’ ve lost co-workers .
We ’ ve lost family members .
We ’ ve lost other loved ones .
Our families and our communities have gone through probably one of the most traumatic months of our lives .
And we have gotten sick by the thousands .
And so , this last — just as we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think about all this and process it , getting this kind of treatment from administrators in our hospital system , who sit safely behind desks and who look at spreadsheets , that is a major dishonorable , disrespectful act .
AMY GOODMAN : Let me get some facts out there .
The Guardian reports , quote , “ The number of healthcare workers who have tested positive for the coronavirus is probably far higher than the reported tally of 9,200 , ” U.S. officials saying “ they have no comprehensive way to count @ @ @ @ @ @ @ save others .
The Centers for Disease Control … released the infection tally on Tuesday and said 27 health worker deaths have been recorded , based on a small number of test-result reports .
Officials stressed that the count was drawn from just 16 % of the nation ’ s Covid-19 cases , so the true numbers of healthcare infections and deaths are certainly far higher.
” So , practically , what does this mean ?
You ’ re home .
You have a sore throat .
You start coughing .
You took @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to get a doctor ’ s note ?
SEAN PETTY : Yeah .
We have to get a doctor ’ s note for every single time we decide to stay home for whatever we ’ re experiencing , whether that — we know that COVID-19 symptoms can last for over a month and can come on and off .
We know that being exposed and working in these challenging conditions exacerbate already preexisting conditions which nurses suffer , whether that ’ s migraine headaches , diabetes , other health conditions .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health day .
We know that people are in a whole range of health conditions .
We know that thousands of us have been exposed .
We have never been — healthcare workers are the least tested group of people in this city .
And that — AMY GOODMAN : Now , this is a critical point , Sean .
AMY GOODMAN : If you can explain what you ’ re talking about ?
So they ’ re saying you need a doctor ’ s note .
But if you ’ re at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well , can you demand a test ?
SEAN PETTY : We currently , as of last week , can finally get testing as healthcare workers .
But for the last month prior to that , we have been denied those tests .
So , the thousands of — the thousands of healthcare workers , the 77 % of our members who have been polled who have been exposed to this coronavirus , for the past month prior to this week , this last week , we have not been able to get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ idea who is actually COVID-positive and who is not .
Their actual reported numbers , whatever they ’ re looking at on their spreadsheets , have to be massively undercounted .
So , the idea they can look at a statistic and determine how many people are calling out sick , versus the amount of people that they think are infected , is absolutely absurd .
AMY GOODMAN : I mean , they should be encouraging you , “ Do not come into work if you are showing symptoms.
” I mean , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you ’ re most contagious in the two days before you start showing symptoms .
So , for God ’ s sakes , if you ’ re showing symptoms and you ’ re going to be up close with patients treating them… SEAN PETTY : And that ’ s been the problem from the beginning , is that every single policy that ’ s been implemented by the federal government , the state , the city , has been based on shortages , not based on science .
And so you have a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shortages , it ’ s not based on science .
So , on the one hand , we have our system telling us , you know , “ We need to make sure you ’ re actually sick .
You need to go get a doctor ’ s note .
You need to overburden an already overburdened healthcare system for unnecessary paperwork .
You need to seek out a doctor ’ s note .
If you can ’ t get one over the phone , you need to go out into the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other people , and obtain this unnecessary paperwork.
” And in a context where we have already been exposed , you know , in some of the most profound ways , and as you — AMY GOODMAN : So , you ’ re protesting today outside Jacobi in the Bronx ?
SEAN PETTY : Yeah .
We ’ ve tried to go the official routes .
We ’ ve been talking to high-level officials at the city for the last week , expressing our concerns , telling them exactly how we feel about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nurses — who have given everything to fight this virus , who have given their entire physical and emotional lives to fight this virus over the last month — and what this means to us , and exactly what ’ s wrong with their accounting of the situation .
And they have still refused to budge .
We ’ ve talked to them practically every day for the last five days , and they still have not listened to us .
So , we have to speak out in a more loud and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I wanted to quickly ask you about an issue that de Blasio raised , the mayor of New York , and many others : the horror of the hundreds of people daily who are dying at home , so many of them undocumented immigrants .
De Blasio said something like 200 to 300 people a day , when the average before was something like 25 , even afraid to go to hospitals because they might meet ICE or something like this .
AMY GOODMAN : You ’ re in the public hospital @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resort , often first resort for the poor .
A final comment on this ?
SEAN PETTY : Well , the public health system is the most critical piece of infrastructure in this country .
And we have the largest public healthcare system left in this country , after decades of public health systems being eroded .
We are the only healthcare system that guarantees healthcare for undocumented immigrants .
And so , to continue these policies that will exacerbate our staffing crisis , will demoralize our nurses , will — if we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ healthcare system — SEAN PETTY : If we ’ re going to set up a healthcare system in the wake of this crisis , our sacrifice needs to be respected , and we need to be able to recruit and retain a robust healthcare staff after this crisis is over .
So , we have to — AMY GOODMAN : We have to leave it there , Sean .
I want to thank you so much for being with us .
Sean Petty , registered nurse in the pediatric emergency room of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the board of directors of the New York State Nurses Association .
I want to end with this tweet from Congressmember Ayanna Pressley , who wrote , “ Went to get a replacement inhaler today .
Told me generic is sold out with a wait list .
So my only option is one that cost $ 175 .
My co pay for the other is [ usually ] $ 10 .
I can afford the increase but millions wont be able to .
Literally what folx need to breathe/ live is political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it for our show .
You can sign up for our daily digest every day , get The Quarantine Report in your email .
Text the words “ democracynow ” — one word — to 66866 .
Or you can go to our website at democracynow.org and sign up there .
Democracy Now !
is working with as few people as possible on site , the majority of our remarkable team working from home .
We thank all of you , and special thanks to general manager Julie Crosby .
I ’ m @ @ @ @ @ @ @ joining us .
Be safe .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We end today’s show here in New York City, where the death toll from the coronavirus has passed 11,000. Every night at 7 p.m., New Yorkers take to their balconies, fire escapes, windows to cheer for medical workers and other essential workers on the frontlines of this crisis.
But inside the hospitals, medical staff are continuing to fight for their basic rights and protections while on the job. After a weeks-long effort demanding more personal protective equipment, New York City health workers now have a new challenge ahead of them: a new policy at the city’s public hospitals that requires medical workers who call in sick to produce a doctor’s note.
The directive was sent out Friday by Health & Hospitals Corporation, which runs the 11 public hospitals and has lost at least five nurses to COVID-19. The memo, which was first reported on by news outlet The City, reads, in part, quote, “In some places we have also identified very high rates of call outs and absences that do not appear to be consistent with patterns of COVID infection,” unquote. Medical workers say the policy puts an unnecessary and dangerous burden on already overworked and at-risk staffers who are showing up every day to treat the sick. This afternoon, nurses from Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx will rally outside the hospital.
We’re joined now by an ER pediatric nurse, Sean Petty, who helped organize today’s protest. He’s a member of the board of directors of the New York State Nurses Association.
Sean, it’s great to have you back with us. Can you talk about this latest memo and the conditions you’re facing in your hospital? And, of course, you work with nurses all over the city.
SEAN PETTY: Yeah. Well, I guess I just want to, first of all, say that, you know, it’s hard to describe the roller coaster that we’ve been on over the last month. And I think we’re just reaching a point, in the last week, where we’re able to breathe a little bit of a sigh of relief. You know, it seems like the COVID cases are slowing into our emergency rooms. We’re becoming more successful at extubating patients and keeping patients alive. And we’re able — at Jacobi, we’re able to get transfers from other hospitals that have been overburdened. So we just are breathing a sigh of relief.
And it’s given us a moment to pause and think about just how traumatic and devastating this last month has been for our lives. We’ve lost co-workers. We’ve lost family members. We’ve lost other loved ones. Our families and our communities have gone through probably one of the most traumatic months of our lives. And we have gotten sick by the thousands.
And so, this last — just as we are able to take a breath and think about all this and process it, getting this kind of treatment from administrators in our hospital system, who sit safely behind desks and who look at spreadsheets, that is a major dishonorable, disrespectful act.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me get some facts out there. The Guardian reports, quote, “The number of healthcare workers who have tested positive for the coronavirus is probably far higher than the reported tally of 9,200,” U.S. officials saying “they have no comprehensive way to count those who lose their lives trying to save others. The Centers for Disease Control … released the infection tally on Tuesday and said 27 health worker deaths have been recorded, based on a small number of test-result reports. Officials stressed that the count was drawn from just 16% of the nation’s Covid-19 cases, so the true numbers of healthcare infections and deaths are certainly far higher.” So, practically, what does this mean? You’re home. You have a sore throat. You start coughing. You took off for a few days. You have to get a doctor’s note?
SEAN PETTY: Yeah. We have to get a doctor’s note for every single time we decide to stay home for whatever we’re experiencing, whether that — we know that COVID-19 symptoms can last for over a month and can come on and off. We know that being exposed and working in these challenging conditions exacerbate already preexisting conditions which nurses suffer, whether that’s migraine headaches, diabetes, other health conditions. We know that people just need a mental health day. We know that people are in a whole range of health conditions. We know that thousands of us have been exposed. We have never been — healthcare workers are the least tested group of people in this city. And that —
AMY GOODMAN: Now, this is a critical point, Sean.
SEAN PETTY: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: If you can explain what you’re talking about? So they’re saying you need a doctor’s note. But if you’re at work and you don’t feel well, can you demand a test?
SEAN PETTY: We currently, as of last week, can finally get testing as healthcare workers. But for the last month prior to that, we have been denied those tests. So, the thousands of — the thousands of healthcare workers, the 77% of our members who have been polled who have been exposed to this coronavirus, for the past month prior to this week, this last week, we have not been able to get tested. So, they have no idea who is actually COVID-positive and who is not. Their actual reported numbers, whatever they’re looking at on their spreadsheets, have to be massively undercounted. So, the idea they can look at a statistic and determine how many people are calling out sick, versus the amount of people that they think are infected, is absolutely absurd.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, they should be encouraging you, “Do not come into work if you are showing symptoms.” I mean, we already know that it seems that you’re most contagious in the two days before you start showing symptoms. So, for God’s sakes, if you’re showing symptoms and you’re going to be up close with patients treating them…
SEAN PETTY: And that’s been the problem from the beginning, is that every single policy that’s been implemented by the federal government, the state, the city, has been based on shortages, not based on science. And so you have a situation where this policy is based on shortages, it’s not based on science. So, on the one hand, we have our system telling us, you know, “We need to make sure you’re actually sick. You need to go get a doctor’s note. You need to overburden an already overburdened healthcare system for unnecessary paperwork. You need to seek out a doctor’s note. If you can’t get one over the phone, you need to go out into the world, expose yourself, be exposed by other people, and obtain this unnecessary paperwork.” And in a context where we have already been exposed, you know, in some of the most profound ways, and as you —
AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re protesting today outside Jacobi in the Bronx?
SEAN PETTY: Yeah. We’ve tried to go the official routes. We’ve been talking to high-level officials at the city for the last week, expressing our concerns, telling them exactly how we feel about this and exactly what this means to nurses — who have given everything to fight this virus, who have given their entire physical and emotional lives to fight this virus over the last month — and what this means to us, and exactly what’s wrong with their accounting of the situation. And they have still refused to budge. We’ve talked to them practically every day for the last five days, and they still have not listened to us. So, we have to speak out in a more loud and effective way.
AMY GOODMAN: Sean, I wanted to quickly ask you about an issue that de Blasio raised, the mayor of New York, and many others: the horror of the hundreds of people daily who are dying at home, so many of them undocumented immigrants. De Blasio said something like 200 to 300 people a day, when the average before was something like 25, even afraid to go to hospitals because they might meet ICE or something like this.
SEAN PETTY: That’s right.
AMY GOODMAN: You’re in the public hospital system, the hospital system of last resort, often first resort for the poor. A final comment on this?
SEAN PETTY: Well, the public health system is the most critical piece of infrastructure in this country. And we have the largest public healthcare system left in this country, after decades of public health systems being eroded. We are the only healthcare system that guarantees healthcare for undocumented immigrants. And so, to continue these policies that will exacerbate our staffing crisis, will demoralize our nurses, will — if we’re going to set up a healthcare system —
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.
SEAN PETTY: If we’re going to set up a healthcare system in the wake of this crisis, our sacrifice needs to be respected, and we need to be able to recruit and retain a robust healthcare staff after this crisis is over. So, we have to —
AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there, Sean. I want to thank you so much for being with us. Sean Petty, registered nurse in the pediatric emergency room of a public hospital in the Bronx, member of the board of directors of the New York State Nurses Association.
I want to end with this tweet from Congressmember Ayanna Pressley, who wrote, “Went to get a replacement inhaler today. Told me generic is sold out with a wait list. So my only option is one that cost $175. My co pay for the other is [usually] $10. I can afford the increase but millions wont be able to. Literally what folx need to breathe/ live is political,” she said.
That does it for our show. You can sign up for our daily digest every day, get The Quarantine Report in your email. Text the words “democracynow” — one word — to 66866. Or you can go to our website at democracynow.org and sign up there.
Democracy Now! is working with as few people as possible on site, the majority of our remarkable team working from home. We thank all of you, and special thanks to general manager Julie Crosby. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us. Be safe.


democracynow--2020-04-17--"Gangster in the White House": Noam Chomsky on COVID-19, WHO, China, Gaza and Global Capitalism

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
The death rate from the coronavirus pandemic continues to accelerate , with worldwide confirmed deaths topping 145,000 .
In the United States , deaths surged to another record high Thursday , nearly doubling to surpass the previous record set just a day before , at 4,591 , U.S. residents died over a single 24-hour period .
Well , today we continue my conversation with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , linguist and author of more than a hundred books .
He ’ s a laureate professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona , Tucson , and professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology , where he taught for more than half a century .
Professor Chomsky joined us last week from his home in Tucson , Arizona , where he is sheltering in place his wife Valeria .
We spoke just after President Donald Trump foreshadowed this week ’ s announcement that he would cut off U.S. support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is Trump addressing reporters last week .
I ’ m old enough to remember as a child listening to Hitler ’ s speeches over the radio , Nuremberg rallies .
I couldn ’ t understand the words , but the tone and the reaction of the crowd , the adoring crowd , was very clear and very frightening .
We know what it led to .
It ’ s hard to — it comes to mind at once when you listen to Trump ’ s ravings and the crowd .
I don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like Hitler .
Hitler had an ideology , horrible ideology , not only massacring all the Jews and 30 million Slavs and the Roma , and conquering much of the world , but also an internal ideology : The state , under control of the Nazi Party , should control every aspect of life , should even control the business community .
That ’ s not the world we ’ re in .
In fact , it ’ s almost the opposite , business controlling the government .
And as far as Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is pure narcissism .
Me , that ’ s the ideology .
As long as I am smart enough to keep serving the real masters , pour money into the pockets of the very wealthy and the corporate sector , and they ’ ll let you get away with your antics .
AMY GOODMAN : World-renowned political dissident , linguist and author Noam Chomsky .
When we come back , he ’ ll discuss conditions in Gaza during the pandemic , and the rise of authoritarianism around the world , and the progressive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ GOODMAN : The Puerto Rican rapper Residente , performing the “ Quarantine Edition ” of his new song “ René.
” This version includes his mom and about 30 other musicians who joined him from their homes .
This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , as we return to Part 2 of our conversation with Noam Chomsky , world-renowned linguist , political dissident and author .
I asked him about Gaza , one of the most densely populated places on Earth , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been reported .
The World Health Organization reports there are just 87 ventilators for Gaza ’ s 2 million residents .
Nearly 300 cases and two deaths have been confirmed in the West Bank .
This is Professor Chomsky .
Now , if you look at the level of states , this looks like an extremely unequal competition .
But states are not the only things that exist .
If you look at the level of people , it ’ s not impossible .
It ’ s possible to construct a Progressive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the organized political groups that have been proliferating , that have gotten a huge shot in the arm from the Sanders campaign , ranging from them to self-help mutual aid , self-help organizations that are rising in communities all over the world , in the most impoverished areas of Brazil , for example , and even this astonishing fact that I mentioned , that the murderous crime gangs are taking responsibility for bringing some form of decent protection against the pandemic in the favelas , the miserable slums , in Rio .
All @ @ @ @ @ @ @ level .
If it expands and develops , if people don ’ t just give up in despair but work to change the world , as they ’ ve done in the past under much worse conditions , if they do that , there ’ s a chance for a Progressive International .
AMY GOODMAN : World-renowned political dissident , linguist and author Noam Chomsky , laureate professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona , Tucson , professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology , where he taught for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chomsky joined us last week from his home in Tucson , Arizona , where he ’ s sheltering in place with his wife Valeria .
Go to our website at Democracy Now !
to see Part 1 of our conversation .
When we come back , a new policy at New York ’ s public hospitals requires medical workers who call in sick to produce a doctor ’ s note .
Stay with us .
AMY GOODMAN : “ Lean on Me ” by Bill Withers .
The legendary singer-songwriter Bill Withers died @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from heart complications .
We were showing , during that music break , nurses dancing around the world to give strength to each other , themselves and their patients .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman. The death rate from the coronavirus pandemic continues to accelerate, with worldwide confirmed deaths topping 145,000. In the United States, deaths surged to another record high Thursday, nearly doubling to surpass the previous record set just a day before, at 4,591, U.S. residents died over a single 24-hour period.
Well, today we continue my conversation with Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author of more than a hundred books. He’s a laureate professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona, Tucson, and professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught for more than half a century. Professor Chomsky joined us last week from his home in Tucson, Arizona, where he is sheltering in place his wife Valeria. We spoke just after President Donald Trump foreshadowed this week’s announcement that he would cut off U.S. support for the World Health Organization. This is Trump addressing reporters last week.
REPORTER 1: Is the time to freeze funding to the WHO during a pandemic of this magnitude? PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, maybe not. I mean, I’m not saying I’m going to do it, but we’re going to look at it. REPORTER 2: You did say that you’re going to do it. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We give a tremendous — no, I didn’t. I said we’re going to look at it. We’re going to investigate it. We’re going to look at it.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what he’s threatening to do right now? First they reject the WHO tests, that would have been critical, and now saying they’re going to defund the World Health Organization.
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, this is typical behavior of autocrats and dictators. When you make colossal errors which are killing thousands of people, find somebody else to blame. And in the United States, it’s unfortunately the case, for well over a century, century and a half, that it’s always easy to blame the “yellow peril.” The yellow — “They’re coming after us.” We’ve seen this all through my life, in fact way before. So, blame the World Health Organization, blame China, claim that the World Health Organization has insidious relations with China, is practically working for them. And that sells to a population that’s been deeply indoctrinated for a long time, way back to the Chinese Exclusion Acts in the 19th century, to say, “Yeah, those yellow barbarians are coming over to destroy us.” That’s almost instinctive.
And it’s backed up by the echo chamber, so, you know, say, Rush Limbaugh. Science is one of the four corners of deceit, along with the media, academia — I forget one of the others, but they’re the four corners of deceit. They live on deceit. You keep driving that into people’s heads. They say, “Why should we believe anything? Why should we believe the news? It’s just fake news. They’re all trying to destroy our savior, our president, the greatest president ever.”
I’m old enough to remember as a child listening to Hitler’s speeches over the radio, Nuremberg rallies. I couldn’t understand the words, but the tone and the reaction of the crowd, the adoring crowd, was very clear and very frightening. We know what it led to. It’s hard to — it comes to mind at once when you listen to Trump’s ravings and the crowd. I don’t suggest that he’s anything like Hitler. Hitler had an ideology, horrible ideology, not only massacring all the Jews and 30 million Slavs and the Roma, and conquering much of the world, but also an internal ideology: The state, under control of the Nazi Party, should control every aspect of life, should even control the business community. That’s not the world we’re in. In fact, it’s almost the opposite, business controlling the government. And as far as Trump is concerned, the only detectable ideology is pure narcissism. Me, that’s the ideology. As long as I am smart enough to keep serving the real masters, pour money into the pockets of the very wealthy and the corporate sector, and they’ll let you get away with your antics.
It’s pretty striking to see what happened at the Davos conference this January. That’s the meeting of the people who are called the “masters of the universe” — CEOs of the major corporations, you know, big media stars and so on. They get together in Davos once a year, congratulate each other on how wonderful they are, put on a pose of dedicated humanists who couldn’t do — you know, just totally devoted to the welfare of the people of the world. “You’re safe leaving your fate in our hands because we’re such good guys.”
Trump came along and gave the keynote address. They don’t like Trump. His vulgarity is incompatible with the image that they’re trying to project of cultivated humanism. But they wildly applauded him, lustily applauded every word, because they know that he does recognize which pockets you have to fill with dollars and how to do it. And as long as he does that, as long as he serves his major constituency, they’ll let him get away with the antics — in fact, like it, because he mobilizes a crowd that will back policies like his legislative achievements. Main one is a tax scam that pours money into the hands of the corporate coffers and harms everyone else. The deregulation is great for business. They love it. They can destroy the environment and harm people as much as they want. Very harmful to the population.
You cut back on pollution constraints, on auto emission regulations, what happens? People die of pollution, of mercury poisoning. The waters are poisoned. And the world, it goes, is facing disaster. You’re accelerating the disaster. As I said, even in the February 10th budget, while cutting back on protection against diseases in the midst of a raging pandemic, increases funding for fossil fuel production, which is going to destroy us all. Of course, a lot more money for the Pentagon and for his famous wall. But that’s the world we’re living in — here, not everywhere. As I said, the Asian countries have been acting sensibly. New Zealand actually seems to have killed it also. Taiwan is doing very well. In Europe, Germany has maybe the lowest death rate in the world, Norway, as well. There are ways to react.
And there are ways to try to destroy everything — what President Trump is leading, with the support of the Murdoch echo chamber, Fox News and others. And amazingly, this conjuring act is working. So, with one hand, you raise your hand to heaven: “I’m the chosen one. I’m your savior. I’m going to rebuild America, make it great again for you, because I’m the servant. I’m the loyal servant of the working class,” and so on. Meanwhile, with the other hand, you’re stabbing them all in the back. And to carry this off is an act of political genius. You have to recognize that serious talent is involved, whether intuitive or conscious planning. It’s devastating. We’ve seen it before. We see it now in dictators, autocrats, sociopaths who happen to get into leadership positions. And it’s now happening in the richest, most important country in world history.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you have this situation in the United States where the economy has been brought to a standstill because of the absolute catastrophe of this pandemic, that people have to isolate — although isolation is a luxury. For so many essential workers, they have to come out into this pandemic and face enormous threat to their own lives. If you can talk about whether you see this pandemic perhaps threatening global capitalism overall or shoring it up, and how the trillions of dollars that are being put into these stimulus packages are going to simply intensify inequality or actually going to help people at the bottom?
NOAM CHOMSKY: That’s a choice, not an inevitability. I mean, the corporate sector is working hard to plan for a future of the kind that you’re describing. The question is whether popular organizations will be able to impose enough pressure to make sure that this doesn’t happen.
And there are ways. Take the corporate — what you just described. The corporations right now are hiding their copies of Ayn Rand and rushing to the nanny state and asking for benefits from the public to overcome the results of their criminal behavior. What have they been doing for the last years? Profits have been going sky high. They’ve been indulging in an orgy of stock buybacks, which are devices to increase the wealth for the rich shareholders and for management while undermining the productive capacity of the enterprise at a huge scale, setting their offices somewhere in a little room in Ireland so they don’t have to pay taxes, using tax havens. This is not small change. This is tens of trillions of dollars, robbing the taxpayer. Does that have to be the case?
Take the current giveaway to corporations. It should be accompanied by conditionalities — term we’re familiar with from the IMF. They should be required to ensure that there will be no more use of tax havens, there will be no more stock buybacks, period. If they don’t do that, with a firm guarantee, no money from the public.
Is that utopian? Not at all. That was the law, and the law was enforced, up until Ronald Reagan, who turned on the spigot to rob as much as you like, with Milton Friedman and other luminaries in the background telling him, “That’s liberty.” “Liberty” means rob the public massively by things like tax havens and stock buybacks. So there’s nothing utopian about these conditions. It says, “Let’s go back to a period of pretty much regimented capitalism,” which developed since Roosevelt, was carried through ’til the ’70s, when it began to erode, and, with Reagan, just ended.
There should be further conditionalities, should be working people should be placed — part of management should be representatives of workers. Is that impossible? No, it’s done in other countries, Germany, for example. There should be a requirement that they guarantee a living wage — not just minimum wage, a living wage. That’s a conditionality that can be imposed.
Now, we can move further and recognize — notice that all of this is pre-Trump. Trump is taking a failing, lethal system and turning it into a monstrosity, but the roots were before him. Just think back to the reason why the pandemic occurred in the first place. Drug companies are following capitalist logic. They don’t want to do anything. The neoliberal hammer says the government can’t do anything the way it did in the past. You’re caught in a vise. Then comes along Trump and makes it incomparably worse. But the roots of the crisis are pre-Trump.
The same with the healthcare system. Like we know that — everyone knows — they should know the basic facts. It’s an international scandal: twice the costs of comparable countries, some of the worst outcomes. The costs were recently estimated by a study in The Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals. They estimated that the costs, the annual — annual costs to Americans are close to half a trillion dollars and 68,000 lives lost. That’s not so small.
AMY GOODMAN: World-renowned political dissident, linguist and author Noam Chomsky. When we come back, he’ll discuss conditions in Gaza during the pandemic, and the rise of authoritarianism around the world, and the progressive response. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: The Puerto Rican rapper Residente, performing the “Quarantine Edition” of his new song “René.” This version includes his mom and about 30 other musicians who joined him from their homes.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we return to Part 2 of our conversation with Noam Chomsky, world-renowned linguist, political dissident and author. I asked him about Gaza, one of the most densely populated places on Earth, where at least 13 cases of COVID-19 have been reported. The World Health Organization reports there are just 87 ventilators for Gaza’s 2 million residents. Nearly 300 cases and two deaths have been confirmed in the West Bank. This is Professor Chomsky.
AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk for a moment, globally, about what’s happening on an issue that has been close to your heart for decades, and that is the Occupied Territories, Gaza and the West Bank, what it means for a place like Gaza, called by the U.N. and people around the world a kind of “open-air prison” of almost 2 million people, what the pandemic could mean there?
NOAM CHOMSKY: It’s almost impossible to think about. Gaza is 2 million people who are in the — living in a prison, open-air prison, under constant attack. Israel, which is the occupying power, recognized by everyone in the world except Israel — Israel is imposing — has been imposing very harsh sanctions ever since the Palestinians made the mistake of carrying out the first free election in the Arab world and electing the wrong people. The United States and Israel came down on them like a ton of bricks.
Israel’s policy, as was explained by Dov Weissglas, the person in charge of the withdrawal of Israeli troops, the withdrawal of the settlers and imposition of the new regime — he explained frankly, “We are putting the people of Gaza on a diet, just enough to keep them alive,” meaning wouldn’t look good if they all die, but not anything more than that. So, not a piece of chocolate or a toy for a child. That’s out. Just enough to stay alive. And if you have a serious health problem, maybe you can apply to go to the hospital in East Jerusalem. Maybe after a couple of weeks, you’ll be allowed to go. Maybe a child is allowed to go, but his mother is not allowed to come.
If the pandemic — there are now a couple of cases in Gaza. If that extends, it’s a total disaster. International institutions have pointed out that by 2020 — that’s now — Gaza will probably become barely livable. About 95% of the water is totally polluted. The place is a disaster. And Trump has made sure that it will get worse. He withdrew funding from the support systems for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank — UNRWA, killed the funding; Palestinian hospitals, killed the funding. And he had a reason. They weren’t praising him enough. They weren’t respectful of the god, so, therefore, we’ll strangle them, even when they’re barely surviving under a harsh and brutal regime.
Incidentally, this extends to Palestinians in Israel, as well. Human rights activists in Israel pointed out recently — there’s articles about it in Haaretz — that Israel finally began to set up a few drive-by testing areas only in Jewish areas, not in the areas with Palestinian population. And to make sure that the intended results would follow, they announced it only in Hebrew, not in Arabic, so Palestinians wouldn’t even know. Well, that’s within Israel. In the Occupied Territories, far worse.
And the Trump hammer came in saying, “We’re not even going to give you a penny, because you’re not respectful enough of me.” I don’t know how to describe this kind of thing. I can’t find words for it.
AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, what do you think is required in an international response to stop the rise of authoritarianism in response to this pandemic? For example, in the Philippines, where the authoritarian leader, Trump ally, Duterte, talks about killing people; the massive crackdown, without support of the people of India, 1.3 billion people, with Narendra Modi. President Trump was in India as the pandemic was taking off, never saying a word about it, packing a stadium of 100,000 people. You have Orbán in Hungary, who is now ruling by decree. What would it take to turn that around to be a progressive response?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, actually, what’s happening, to the extent that you can find some coherent policy in the madness in the White House, one thing does emerge with considerable clarity — namely, an effort to construct an international of the most reactionary states and oppressive states, led by the gangster in the White House. Now, this is taking shape.
I can run through it, but since you mentioned India, Modi, who is a Hindu nationalist extremist, is systematically moving to destroy Indian secular democracy and to crush the Muslim population. What’s happening in Kashmir is horrifying. It was bad enough before, now getting much worse. Same with the Muslim population, a huge population in India. The current lockdown is almost — you can almost describe it as genocidal. Modi gave, I think, a four-hour warning saying total lockdown. That’s over a billion people. Some of them have nowhere to go. People in the informal economy, which is a huge number of people, are just cast out. “Go walk back to your village,” which may be a thousand miles away. “Die on the roadside.” This is a huge catastrophe in the making, right on top of the strong efforts to impose the ultra-right Hindutva doctrines that are at the core of Modi’s thinking and background.
What’s happening in — quite apart from this, India — in fact, South Asia generally — is going to become unlivable pretty soon, if current climate policies persist. Last summer, the temperature in Rajasthan went up to 50 degrees centigrade. And it’s increasing. There’s hundreds of millions of people in India that don’t have access to water. It’s going to get much worse, could lead to a nuclear war between the two powers that basically rely on the same water resources, which are declining under global warming: Pakistan and India. I mean, the horror story that’s developing is, again, indescribable. You can’t find words for it. And some people are cheering about it, like Donald Trump and his friend Bolsonaro in Brazil, a couple of other sociopaths.
But how do you counter a reactionary international? By developing a Progressive International. And there are steps to that. They don’t get much publicity, but this — I think it’s this coming December, there will be a formal announcement of what has been in process for some time. Yanis Varoufakis, the founder and leading figure in DiEM25, the progressive movement in Europe, very important — Varoufakis and Bernie Sanders came out with a declaration calling for a Progressive International to combat and, we hope, overcome the reactionary international based in the White House.
Now, if you look at the level of states, this looks like an extremely unequal competition. But states are not the only things that exist. If you look at the level of people, it’s not impossible. It’s possible to construct a Progressive International based on people, ranging from the organized political groups that have been proliferating, that have gotten a huge shot in the arm from the Sanders campaign, ranging from them to self-help mutual aid, self-help organizations that are rising in communities all over the world, in the most impoverished areas of Brazil, for example, and even this astonishing fact that I mentioned, that the murderous crime gangs are taking responsibility for bringing some form of decent protection against the pandemic in the favelas, the miserable slums, in Rio. All of this is happening on the popular level. If it expands and develops, if people don’t just give up in despair but work to change the world, as they’ve done in the past under much worse conditions, if they do that, there’s a chance for a Progressive International.
And notice, bear in mind, that there are also striking cases of internationalism, progressive internationalism, at the state level. So, take a look at the European Union. The rich countries in Europe, like Germany, have recently given us a lesson in just what the union means. Right? Germany is managing pretty well. They probably have the lowest death rate in the world, in organized society. Right next door, northern Italy is suffering miserably. Is Germany giving them any aid? No. In fact, Germany even blocked the effort to develop euro bonds, general bonds in Europe which could be used to alleviate the suffering in the countries under the worst conditions. But fortunately for Italy, it can look across the Atlantic for aid from the superpower on the Western Hemisphere, Cuba. Cuba is, once again, as before, exhibiting extraordinary internationalism, sending doctors to Italy. Germany won’t do it, but Cuba can. China is providing material aid. So, these are steps towards progressive internationalism at the state level.
AMY GOODMAN: World-renowned political dissident, linguist and author Noam Chomsky, laureate professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona, Tucson, professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught for more than half a century. Noam Chomsky joined us last week from his home in Tucson, Arizona, where he’s sheltering in place with his wife Valeria. Go to our website at Democracy Now! to see Part 1 of our conversation.
When we come back, a new policy at New York’s public hospitals requires medical workers who call in sick to produce a doctor’s note. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers. The legendary singer-songwriter Bill Withers died last month at the age of 81 from heart complications. We were showing, during that music break, nurses dancing around the world to give strength to each other, themselves and their patients.


democracynow--2020-04-17--Headlines for April 17, 2020

Headlines for April 17, 2020

Deaths from COVID-19 in the United States surged to another record high Thursday , nearly doubling to surpass the previous record set just a day before .
Four thousand five hundred ninety-one U.S. residents died over a single 24-hour period , with another 31,000 newly confirmed coronavirus cases across the U.S. Worldwide , over 145,000 people have died of COVID-19 , according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University .
At the White House , President Trump on Thursday outlined federal guidelines for states to reopen their economies , saying it was up to individual governors to decide when and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President Donald Trump : “ Some states are not in the kind of trouble that others are in .
Now that we have passed the peak in new cases , we ’ re starting our life again .
We ’ re starting rejuvenation of our economy again in a safe and structured and very responsible fashion.
” Trump told governors in a conference call Thursday , “ You ’ re gon na call your own shots ” — reversing his claim last Monday he has “ total ” authority to tell states when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say it ’ s far too early to reopen schools , businesses and large gatherings without spawning a new surge in COVID-19 cases .
They say a massive increase in testing and contact tracing capacity is needed before social distancing measures can be relaxed .

Deaths from COVID-19 in the United States surged to another record high Thursday, nearly doubling to surpass the previous record set just a day before. Four thousand five hundred ninety-one U.S. residents died over a single 24-hour period, with another 31,000 newly confirmed coronavirus cases across the U.S. Worldwide, over 145,000 people have died of COVID-19, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. At the White House, President Trump on Thursday outlined federal guidelines for states to reopen their economies, saying it was up to individual governors to decide when and how to relax social distancing measures.
President Donald Trump: “Some states are not in the kind of trouble that others are in. Now that we have passed the peak in new cases, we’re starting our life again. We’re starting rejuvenation of our economy again in a safe and structured and very responsible fashion.”
Trump told governors in a conference call Thursday, “You’re gonna call your own shots” — reversing his claim last Monday he has “total” authority to tell states when and how to reopen. Medical professionals say it’s far too early to reopen schools, businesses and large gatherings without spawning a new surge in COVID-19 cases. They say a massive increase in testing and contact tracing capacity is needed before social distancing measures can be relaxed.