The CommonHealth

Tom Bollyky joined us on the occasion of our 100th episode to reflect on President Biden’s six-point re-set of US pandemic policy, unveiled September 9, and to discuss what can be done to break the deadlock over determining the origin of SARS-CoV-2. President Biden’s patience has clearly run out, and the new approach, heavily reliant on mandates, will stir political blowback, litigation, and defiant disobedience which may slow progress versus accelerate momentum. It’s “not a happy day” when people will be “pushed into a corner.” It’s disappointing that the private sector did not earlier do far more. Our national narrative may however improve, as higher rates of hospitalization of children deflate the individual freedom argument. On the origins controversy, it is “utterly unsurprising” that the US intelligence review was inconclusive. The origin issue is indeed terribly important, at this historic “policy moment,” since without resolution, we are blocked in our prevention approaches. We are in a “dark environment” and there is no prospect for progress in global health unless we find a basis for cooperation between the US and China. In the meantime, we should prioritize moving ahead with more rigorous lab safety standards and end wildlife trade and wet markets.Thomas J. Bollyky is the Director of the Global Health Program and Senior Fellow for Global Health, Economics, and Development at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Professor Larry Gostin joined us for a spirited conversation of where America as a country stands today, almost two years into Covid-19. Human ingenuity and scientific gains have been “astounding,” while our preparedness, in the face of such a “wily enemy,” has too often been “abysmal.” We experienced shock when the first wave that began in Wuhan landed at our shores, CDC bungled tests, the Trump administration stoked anti-Asian hatred and politicized essential tools – masks, vaccines, and temporary lockdowns. Public health messaging too often has been “appalling," as CDC’s scientific leadership has stumbled. Now, in late 2021, we face the danger of dividing our society into two opposing camps, the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated. The Biden administration has refused to take up vaccine credentialing, a significant mistake. It has also shown remarkable leadership in trying to overcome vaccine hesitancy and refusal, and now must turn increasingly to mandates. Larry Gostin is University Professor and Director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown Law.

In conversation with Steve Morrison on August 3, Dr. Fauci began by laying out the $3.2b Antiviral Program for Pandemics. Its dual aims are quick and long-term wins. The optimal antiviral: a single pill, oral, that early in infection stops replication. Any solution has to be grounded in equity of access, at home and abroad; requires a massive increase in testing; and will rest on combination therapy to combat variants. The initial $3.2b, it is hoped, achieves success that fuels higher future investments. Private industry and academic partners are key to rapid gains and building sustainable R&D capacity. Beyond the APP, how to arrest the “pandemic of the unvaccinated? We need a national “uniformity of approach” on masks, vaccination levels of at least 1-2 million per day, quick full approval of mRNA vaccines, boosters, and vaccines available for kids “not beyond the fall.”Dr. Anthony Fauci is the Chief Medical Adviser to President Joe Biden and Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Chris Murray, director of IHME, joined our podcast once again, at this major moment of reset of expectations – of our ability to control the pandemic, of policy decisions, data gaps, political attitudes and behavior, hitting the wall of hesitancy and refusal to vaccinate, and public confusion. We cover the full gamut: the forecast for the fall surge, missteps on masking, the need for greater transparency in data, and how much room exists to overcome resistance to vaccines. Chris Murray is the Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and Chair and Professor, Department of Health Metrics Sciences, at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Dr. Birx, former Response Coordinator during the Trump administration of the White House Covid-19 Task Force, served also as the Global AIDS Coordinator and Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy between April 2014 and January 2021. She joined us for an extended conversation on the accelerating changes surrounding us – the Delta variant surge, new discoveries regarding breakthrough infections among the vaccinated, continued vaccine hesitancy, and refusal that has prompted the declaration of “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.” As we speak, newly revised policies on masks and vaccinations are getting unveiled. What to make of this new phase, and where is it heading? We’ll need far higher testing and genomic sequencing, intensified local engagement, a big push on accelerating therapies, and thinking ahead on what the future mix of vaccines will look like. Dr. Deborah Birx is a Senior Fellow at the George W. Bush Presidential Center

Gary Edson, President and founder of The Covid Collaborative, has for decades been a highly visible and impactful leader across government, business, and the non-profit worlds. While serving in senior White House positions in President George W. Bush’s administration, he played a key role in the design and launch of the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and in the management of G-7 and other summits. He joins us to explore why the international response to Covid-19 has been so radically different from the response two decades ago to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. He also walks us through the genesis of the Covid Collaborative, how it operates, its impressive achievements in devising plans of action embraced by governors whose constituents account for one-third of Americans, and its rapid, innovative work on testing, masks, vaccine hesitancy, and school reopening. More recently, the Collaborative has focused (with CSIS) on the stark global split between vaccine ‘haves’ versus ‘have nots,’ at the very moment when two Americas have appeared, the vaccinated and unvaccinated. What gives him hope? “America rises to the occasion.” Gary Edson is the President of The Covid Collaborative.

We’re blessed to sit down with Dr. Charity Dean, the central figure of Michael Lewis’ pandemic book, The Premonition, former Assistant Director of the California Department of Public Health in 2020, and co-founder of The Public Health Company. Her premonition on her birthday in December 2019 — a “giant blue tsunami wave” engulfing the US - prompted her to track what was happening in China “obsessively.” She became part of the executive team that devised Governor Newson’s operational pandemic plan. She also joined in 2020 the Red Dawn group, “a tactical warfare group” of “Wolverines” and other pandemic experts advising state governors as well as the Trump administration. She founded PHC in the spring of this year to create new software platforms for the private sector to manage the risks of future pandemics. Listen to learn more.Dr. Charity Dean, MD, MPH&TM, is co-founder and CEO of The Public Health Company.

Washington Post ace reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta take us inside their newly released blockbuster, "Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration's Response to the Pandemic That Changed History." A gripping, provocative tour d’horizon. Give a listen.

Steve Morrison, who lives in the shadow of the Capitol, brought together Liz Lynch, a freelance professional photographer who attended the January 6 rally at the ellipse and both sides of the Capitol during the insurrection, and Alex Lazar, an academic pathologist, the University of Texas/MD Anderson, who on January 6 was working inside the Capitol. Listen in to hear their three respective angles on what transpired: the most poignant, vivid, revealing moments and how to digest the gravity and meaning of the siege and its aftermath. 

Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), the senior House appropriator and a respected national leader on health security at home and abroad, has served on the CSIS Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security since 2018. In this wide-ranging conversation, he reflects on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa massacre of the Black Greenwood community; the “successful but mixed bag” of the rollout of vaccines in America; the impressive management by the Native American community of the vaccine challenges; and the continued need for bipartisan support of US health security leadership abroad. China’s behavior on the origin of the virus looks suspicious, like a “coverup.” Attacks on Dr. Tony Fauci are a “dangerous phenomenon.” Dr. Fauci was wrestling in his emails with an evolving crisis. To attack him is like going after American nuclear scientists in the 1950s. Support for CEPI is “money well spent,” the “most modest of insurance.” Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) is in his tenth term representing the 4th District of Oklahoma.