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Brian Lehrer: From WNYC in New York, it's America: Are We Ready? Good evening, everyone. I'm Brian Lehrer from WNYC Radio. It's a national calling to connect with your neighbors and people from around the country this hour on the question, is there a liberal and a conservative way to fight a pandemic?

Christina Greer: I'm Christina Greer, political science professor at Fordham University. The United States today officially hit the grim milestone of 200,000 [inaudible 00:00:59] virus. The pandemic is not over. In fact, the second wave of lockdowns is now underway in countries rooted, faded, and came back as they reopened, including the UK, Spain, Israel, and India, all to different degrees.

Brian: The question for Americans now is, who would be the better president for keeping us safe from the virus and from the economic, social, and educational devastation that shutdowns can bring? What should the balance be and who is better to strike it, Joe Biden or Donald Trump? Also, who'll get vaccine development right and who'll develop the rapid and at-home tests that might free us to return to normal even faster than a vaccine?

Christina: We will have three guests this hour. One more associated with conservative institutions, then one more associated with liberal ones, and then a journalist to tie it all together. With us first is Avik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity in Austin, Texas and policy editor for Forbes magazine. He was also a healthcare policy adviser to Mitt Romney's 2012 Republican presidential campaign. Avik, thanks for joining us and welcome to America: Are We Ready?

Avik Roy: Hey, it's a pleasure to be with you. How are you?

Christina: Great. Thank you, Avik. Let's jump right in. Is there a liberal or conservative way to fight this pandemic?

Avik: Well, I was really a bit amused, I'd say, listening to the way you laid out the segment. Because what's interesting to me and what I observe is that the conservatives from a dictionary definition standpoint, the people who are averse to risk, the people who are cautious, the people who are perhaps more dogmatic and unwilling to think about contrarian points of view, those are the people who, in general, are advocating a very restrictive approach to COVID-19, where we locked down the economy and we basically think about avoiding the risk of the virus at the expense of all other things, putting that as the highest priority.

The liberals, the small-L liberals, again, from the dictionary definition point of view, are the ones who are open to different points of view competing interpretations of the evidence that we find, people who are much more oriented towards balancing the trade-offs between restrictions, closures of schools, restrictions of businesses, along with the risks of the virus.

Brian: Avik, when you say "balancing the trade-offs," does that mean accepting a certain number of additional deaths for a certain number of additional or let's say less economic pain?

Avik: Well, Brian, I think that your premise is false because you're assuming that there's no cost to lives from massive economic restrictions and the closure of schools. In fact, there's a considerable amount of academic research that shows that prolonged economic shutdowns do decrease life expectancy, do increase deaths of various types. Deaths from mental health challenges, deaths of despair, deaths from not being able to seek health care of a non-COVID nature. They're all sorts of elements of health and health care that are damaged by lockdowns, and that has to be taken into account along with the economic and equality costs during the closure of schools.

Brian: I completely agree. I think that was the framing. Where's the balance in these complex choices? We know now that as of today, officially 200,000 Americans have died from the virus. Would you argue that anything proportional to that has taken place in terms of American deaths from the degree of lockdown that we've had or could have?

Avik: Well, this is a really important question, right? If we look around, if we look at New York City where you are, Brian, there was a lockdown, right? Schools are still closed and New York City in particular has that higher proportion of deaths per capita than any other part of the country. California has not had the same problems that New York has had.

If you compare, say, California and Texas, which have had pretty similar courses in terms of deaths, mortality, hospitalizations, cases, California has chosen a more aggressive or restrictive approach to lockdowns. Texas has been a bit more pragmatic. The results have been pretty similar, right? It's not clear. There's this dogma out there that lockdown save lives, at least in certain quarters. If you actually look at the evidence of how lockdowns are performed, we don't actually see that correlation.

Brian: Have lockdowns cost lives? Isn't the New York experience that it came in from Europe before anybody realized that was happening. It spread like wildfire, and then New York locked down pretty aggressively and it's gotten its positivity rate below 1% while California loosened up pretty quickly, Texas loosened up pretty quickly, and they've got much higher rates of transmission right now than New York.

Avik: I would describe it a little differently, Brian. By the time New York locked down, it was too late. The virus was already affecting roughly 20% of Manhattan. By the time the economic restrictions were in place, the virus had already spread throughout the city. It's not at all clear that the lockdowns actually did anything, but it's quite possible. I would argue it's probable that the reason why New York is seeing lower positivity rates now is because the people who were most susceptible to the virus got it very early on.

In the case of California, California did do a modest reopening. They're not locked down to the degree they were six months ago or, I should say, let's call it five months ago. They were much more restrictive than Texas. Again, at the time, you'll recall that when Texas and Florida and states like that did start to reopen in the May, June time frame, there were a lot of predictions that a million people would die in places like Texas and Florida and that hasn't happened.

In fact, as I said, as you know, the deaths in New York and Florida have been much-- excuse me, in Texas and Florida have been much, much lower than those dire predictions and they've been pretty similar to the performance of California. If you look at California, Texas, and Florida, three states that have had pretty similar trajectories but very different policy responses, we're not seeing a lot of difference in the way the pandemic has played out in those three states.

Christina: Avik, I want to ask you about some of these trade-offs in your point of view between virus deaths and serious illnesses, because we know that the virus is affecting Black and Latinx communities in disproportionate rates. We know that the virus is affecting Black and Latinx children at disproportionate rates. How are you viewing this trade-off between deaths, serious illnesses, which are totally different category, and some of these economic and social and educational costs of the shutdown? If we're already in one phase and we could possibly look to other nations to see what's coming down the pike, what are you proposing then for Americans to do?

Avik: There's a couple of important things to understand as we think about racial and ethnic differences in the way COVID has traveled through our society. I actually testified before Congress about a half dozen times this summer on this topic. I spent a lot of time with this data. One thing that's really important to be aware of is that part of that disproportionality is due to the fact that COVID has disproportionately affected urban areas and the parts of the country that are more racially and ethnically diverse, right?

If the disease is more prevalent in more diverse parts of the country, that alone explains part of the disparity in terms of racial impacts. What we do see in particular is the trend that's actually the most displayed, the biggest single disparity of COVID is disparity of medically-vulnerable elderly individuals. People who live in nursing homes, who live in assisted-living facilities across the United States, about 0.6% of the US population lives in nursing homes or assisted-living facilities and long-term care facilities.

These are seniors who are disabled or have other challenges with activities of daily living, taking a shower, having dinner, getting their clothes on in the morning. Those individuals have been ravaged by COVID. By the way, disproportionately, the people who live in nursing homes are people who are on Medicaid, people who are low income disproportionately, minority, non-white, right? Where have we seen a lot of the problems, particularly early on with nursing homes? It was in New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, states where you have a high minority population in these medically-vulnerable communities.

Brian: We're going to run out of time for this segment in about two minutes. I want to get one other question in here with a clip. What do you think that global experience is teaching us about the ideal pace of reopening? They're having new clusters and newly re-imposed restrictions in the UK and elsewhere. Here's British Prime Minister Boris Johnson today.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson: All pubs, bars, and restaurants must operate a table-service only, Mr. Speaker, except for takeaways. Together with all hospitality venues, they must close at 10:00 PM. To help the police enforce this rule, I'm afraid that means, alas, closing and not just calling for last orders because simplicity is paramount. The same would apply to takeaways, though deliveries can continue thereafter. I'm sorry that this will affect many businesses that are just getting back on their feet, but we must act to stop the virus from being transmitted in bars and restaurants.

Brian: Avik, I apologize. You're going to have to give us a 30-second answer. What we're seeing in the UK-

Avik: I'll make it very quick.

Brian: - we're seeing something even worse than Israel and it's happening in Madrid and elsewhere too.

Avik: The overwhelming experience in Europe is that reopening schools works because kids are at very low risk of morbidity and mortality of serious illness or death. They also appear to transmit the virus to adults at extremely low rates.

Brian: Why is it spreading then?

Avik: It's not spreading because of younger children. The cases that we're seeing, there's been a rise in cases, but there hasn't been a corresponding rise in deaths because, again, the virus hit the most susceptible populations early on. We have to do more to protect nursing homes and vulnerable seniors and we have to do more to reopen schools and society for young children.

Brian: Avik Roy is president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity in Austin, Texas and policy editor for Forbes magazine. Thank you so much for joining us, Avik.

Avik: Brian, good to be with you.

Brian: Is there a liberal or conservative way to fight a pandemic? We'll get a different point of view right after this.

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Brian: This is America: Are We Ready? Is there a liberal or conservative way to fight a pandemic? I'm Brian Lehrer from WNYC Radio with Fordham University Political Science Professor Christina Greer. Joining us now is Dr. Leana Wen, emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University, contributing columnist for The Washington Post, and former health commissioner for the city of Baltimore. Dr. Wen, thanks so much for joining us tonight. Welcome to America: Are We Ready?

Dr. Leana Wen: Happy to be with you. Thank you, Brian.

Brian: Listeners, we'll get to your calls, be patient, in just a couple of minutes.

Christina: Dr. Wen, thanks so much. I have a quick question for you about masks. We wanted to get your opinion about the national or state or local mask mandates. The head of the CDC, Dr. Redfield, said that universal mask-wearing could cut down on transmission possibly by even 80%. We also saw the lieutenant governor of Ohio go out and possibly try and convince Republican voters to wear a mask and he was booed quite handily off the stage. Where do you stand on masks and what should our listeners know about masks having just heard Avik Roy talk about transmission and the new phase of the virus?

Dr. Wen: I appreciate the question and I do think it's important for us to talk about masks from the perspective that I'm familiar with, which is from the public health and science point of view. I don't come to this as a politician with a political perspective or rather less talk about the data around masks. Let's talk about also how things have changed since the beginning because at the very beginning of the pandemic, before it was a pandemic, we didn't know about asymptomatic transmission.

We also didn't know about aerosol transmission, that these much smaller droplets can carry the virus that causes COVID-19 and because you don't know if you have COVID. Other people around you don't know that, that they haven't. Now that we know about both of these elements, that's why mask-wearing is such a critical component to reducing trend transmission. There have been various reviews that have been done in the literature that have found that wearing a mask can reduce your rate of transmitting and acquiring COVID-19 by as much as five to six times.

Five to six times. Another way of looking at it, another review found that universal mask-wearing will reduce the risk of getting COVID-19 by 80%. Think about this. If this were a medication that we could all take today, wouldn't we all want to take a medication that could reduce our risk of getting and transmitting coronavirus by 80%? I think we all would, so let's all use that public health tool that we have at our disposal.

Brian: Dr. Wen, how much of the Avik Roy segment did you hear and how much of that would you want to respond to? He certainly was saying things that are not what I usually hear from the public health professionals who I interview about the risks of opening and the consequences of opening that we're seeing around the world, for example.

Dr. Wen: I did not hear much of what he had said. Although having been on other panels with him in the past, I think I understand some of what his viewpoint would be. Look, here's the thing. Of course, there are real consequences to having things be closed, but I think that there is a real danger to somehow pitting public health as the enemy. As in there are individuals want to say that public health is the enemy of the economy or the enemy of schools being reopened when, actually, following public health best practices is the key to reopening everything safely.

Suppressing the level of virus of the community is the best tool that we have to ensure that our schools can reopen safely. The same for coming back to work. I think we should start with a premise that we all want the same thing. It would be wonderful to return to a pre-pandemic normal. It would be wonderful. I have two little kids. I would love for them, for my toddler who's in preschool, to be able to go to school again. I would love for us to not-- I have a newborn and the grandparents, none of our grandparents, because they live so far away, they have not come to visit my baby. I would love for that thought to be the case, but the way we get there is through a national strategy. Hope alone is not that strategy.

Brian: Would you disagree with him that little kids don't transmit the virus to adults?

Dr. Wen: Yes, because that's not what the data shows. There needs to be a lot more research around this, but this is what we know about children and introspection. I wrote a Post column actually about this about a month ago or so. We know that from a very large study in South Korea, looking at tens of thousands of contacts that were traced that children 10 and older transmit the virus as much as adults do. Younger than 10, the jury is out.

There are some studies that have found that daycare centers can safely reopen if they follow public health best practices, but also if they reopen in areas with relatively low levels of viral spread. The studies that have been done in other countries where schools have reopened safely, the big difference is they started out with a much lower level of viral spread than we did in this country. In addition, there have been some conflicting reports of younger children.

Some showing that younger kids do not transmit as much, but there was a report published by the CDC that definitively established from some contact tracing studies in Utah that younger kids, including an eight-month-old baby, did transmit the virus to adults that these younger kids are around. Is it possible and likely that young kids transmit less than older kids? Maybe, but to say that children and young children do not transmit the virus is simply not true because that's not what the science tells us.

Brian: He argued that the death rates early on that were so high in the New York, New Jersey area when the virus got in from Europe before anybody realized took place mostly in nursing homes and other congregate care facilities and was not tamped down by the aggressive lockdown in New York, more aggressive in California and Texas undertook because when they reopened, they saw a lot of cases, but they didn't see the deaths.

This is what Trump is running on. This is what a lot of Republicans are running on. This is why we frame it as, is there a liberal-conservative? Is there a Democratic, Republican way to fight the virus? In electoral terms this year, there really is. How much would you agree with or disagree with his argument about how to look at the resurgence in Texas, in California versus the lack of resurgence in New York?

Dr. Wen: Well, there are a few things here. One, in terms of the strategy, I would just view the strategy as, do we want the status quo or do we want something dramatically different as a country? The status quo is what got us to where we are where we hit this terrible milestone of 200,000 deaths today where there is still, as far as I can tell that no one has been able to explain to me, a national strategy around something as basic as testing.

Why is it that we are eight months into this pandemic and we still don't have nearly enough testing even when other countries around the world have figured it out? We have not. To me, overall, it's a question of, are we okay with the way that things have been going where we're facing 200,000 more deaths by the end of the year or do we need to do something very different? In this case, to me, that also means following the science, not muzzling our scientists, not having politicians be dictating what the CDC is doing, not have something as basic as vaccine approval be subject to political expediency rather than following public health guidance.

That to me is the difference between the current strategy and the strategy that we really need as a nation in order to fight this virus. I think the other point about New York and I think one of the points that I've heard Avik Roy make in the past is around whether we can just somehow keep older individuals and those who are vulnerable cordoned off in some way and let everybody else return back to society. That just doesn't work. We have seen with this very contagious virus that what starts in the young doesn't stay in the young, and also young people do get sick and have died from this virus.

Christina: Thanks, Dr. Wen. Brian, let's hear from Joe from Acworth, Georgia. Joe, welcome to WNYC.

Brian: And you're on America: Are We Ready? Hi.

Joe: Hi. How are you, guys?

Brian: Good.

Christina: Good. Thanks.

Joe: All right. I guess to the question of--

Christina: Your question?

Joe: Yes, I guess to the question of whether or not there's a Republican or a Democratic way. I would say no, but there should be an American way that we handle these kinds of situations. My question is, or I guess comment/question would be, why-- we've realized that political apparatus is not the best way to handle this, right? To the doctor's point or the professor's point, political components have a horrible track record with dealing with these types of issues, so why are Americans not holding our industries responsible for taking care of this situation? That's what we do best in the United States, right? For instance, perfect example is the shortage of masks.

Why aren't hospitals-- We have the most expensive health care in the world by any metrics you can measure it on, per capita, any way you want to cut it. Why aren't we holding private healthcare institutions responsible for not having stockpiles of masks? Why do we point the finger at political institutions? Say, "Well, why didn't you tell us to stockpile mask?" That's not their responsibility. We pay these people. We're a capitalist society. We pay those people to do it. We should be using the industrialized ingenuity of the United States, which cannot be compared to any other country in the world to handle this pandemic, yet we blame ourselves for not being effective--

Brian: Apologies. Let me jump in for time. Dr. Wen, he's put some interesting notions on the table there. Do you want to respond?

Dr. Wen: One thing I very much agree with Joe on, which is that there should not be a Democratic or Republican response to the pandemic. This should be something that is driven not at all by politics or partisanship but rather by public health. We should be having scientists and public health leaders lead this public health response. In fact, I'm very troubled when something as basic as mask-wearing becomes politicized when there are political rallies that are occurring in defiance of public health guidelines in the middle of a pandemic where people are flaunting these public health guidelines.

I agree that there should be a public health and really a political strategy. I disagree though with Joe about who should be leading this response. Of course, private institutions, hospitals have a role to play here. We've seen hospitals and many others step up in part because the federal government has utterly failed in their response. You cannot expect that individual hospitals or health departments on the local or state levels can prepare for a national disaster in the same way that you imagine that a hurricane hits a particular area.

Everyone would want to help the hospitals and the individuals who are hard hit in that area that you would get supplies from other places. There's no way that one institution can prepare for a disaster of this kind of scale. This is the reason why there is a national stockpile. This is why there is a national preparedness plan for exactly this type of scenario. In fact, one problem that we had in this entire response is that we've had hospitals that because they didn't have the supplies needed for this public health catastrophe, they were forced to bid against each other, bid against the states.

States had to bid against the federal government, against one another. Four basic supplies like masks and gowns. Believe me. I would think it's a travesty that we left our health care professionals without this basic equipment to protect them. As a result, many people died and got infected who shouldn't have who are frontline workers. Where is that responsibility ultimately? I've seen our hospitals do their best and do everything they can. I've seen local and state leaders try their best. At the end of the day, it's failure of a national response because this was a public health pandemic that required a national mobilization that we did not receive.

Christina: Now, let's hear from Chuck from Dallas-Fort Worth. Chuck, welcome. Welcome to America: Are We Ready?

Chuck: Hi. How are you doing? Dr. Wen, first and foremost, thank you for your service and all the other health professionals out there on the pandemic. Personally, I don't believe that this issue should be a partisan, period. It's based on science and science-- Unfortunately, though, in the past histories, the world has been argued as being flat such, but science in the end really prevails. The fact that microaerosols can cause it are important, wearing a mask, staying distance, washing your hands.

I think we can have both things where we protect the patients, protect the population, protect those at risk, and still have an economic engine. It's been shown in other countries that's the case. If we all can keep that and keep reminding each other that's our patriotic duty to keep everybody safe, your brother's safe. Right now, at 200,000, we've lost more people here now than we have in multiple wars combined that the United States has been engaged in.

Brian: Chuck, thank you very much. Dr. Wen, what do you think?

Dr. Wen: I'm afraid that I got cut out, I think, for part of Chuck's question.

Brian: You know what? I'm going to bring on one more questionnaire then. That's going to be Sam in Somerdale, New Jersey and then we'll get your response to the set. Sam, you're on America, Are We Ready? Hi.

Sam: Hi. Good evening. I'm a card-carrying nerd right down to the pocket protector slide rule and TI-30 calculator with a denim pouch. The right way? We've got to follow the scientists, the doctors that follow the scientists, not the doctors that believe in dinosaur DNA being part of a lot of our problems. The question is, following the science and following the statistics, we've seen other political leaders from around the world become afflicted and I don't want anyone to get sick.

My politics aside, I don't want anyone to get sick. What would explain Donald Trump's good luck though? He's doing everything wrong. He's in the middle of these big groups. Granted Air Force One isn't your typical airliner, but he's subjecting himself to being in all these great, big bubbles. What is he doing and why aren't we doing that if we want to see that we don't get afflicted? Like the saying goes, "If you want to be successful, find someone who's been successful and do what they're doing."

Brian: Sam, thank you very much. Really, what the President is doing, if we want to take him literally, Dr. Wen, is anybody who comes in contact with the President because he's the President has to get tested. If we were doing that for all our workplaces, for all our schools, then it would be safe to reopen, right?

Dr. Wen: Yes. This is why-- and I think Sam made this great point. The President can keep himself safe, why can't the rest of us too? Exactly right, Brian, that what the President has is testing, daily testing of all those who come in contact with him. The moment they test positive, they are identified, they are isolated, their contacts are traced, and that infection is boxed in.

That's exactly what public health experts, including myself, have been saying all along in this pandemic that we need to stop infection, to stop the transmission among asymptomatic individuals. The President and his team recognize that it's important for him. Why can't we have it for the rest of America? That type of daily, widespread, accessible, free testing is something that we all should have.

Imagine what a game-changer that would be and how much safer it would be, how much safer we would feel about going back to work or have your kids going back in present instruction. That's the example of something that we need a national response to do. It just does not make sense for every hospital, every workplace, every school to be setting up their own testing and figuring out how to pay for it when it's something that can be done much better at scale by the federal government?

Christina: Dr. Wen, it's so interesting that you use the phrase "game-changer," considering we know that the NFL and the NBA has resources to test every day and daily.

Brian: I have to jump in because we are coming to a break. Dr. Leana Wen from George Washington University and Washington Post columnist, thank you very much for joining us.

Dr. Wen: Thank you.

Brian: America: Are We Ready? continues in a minute.

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Brian: This is America: Are We Ready? Is there a liberal or conservative way, a Democratic or Republican way to stop a pandemic? Joining us now is Asma Khalid, who is NPR-- one of the NPR political correspondents and co-host of NPR's Politics Podcast. Asma, thanks so much for joining us. Welcome to America: Are We Ready?

Asma Khalid: Hi there. My pleasure.

Brian: A central question this hour has simply been, is there a Democratic and Republican way to fight the pandemic? We certainly seem to be hearing it from Republicans and Democrats speaking differently about it and the approach to it. We heard differently from our two guests prior to you. Does your reporting indicate that there actually is a Democratic and Republican way to fight the pandemic or at least a claim that there is?

Asma: I think there's certainly a Democratic and Republican interpretation of the severity of the pandemic. I say that, Brian, because I've gone out and I've spoken with voters and did some reporting on just the way that both Republicans and Democrats are campaigning in this moment. It's wildly different, right? Whether we're talking about Democrats being very resistant to actually knock on doors and do this in-person physical campaigning compared to Republicans who have been, for months at this point, doing physical, traditional campaigning.

Christina: Asma, for our listeners, what would you say are the biggest differences between Biden and Trump right now and how they're going to fight the virus going forward? Let's forget about the debate on how Trump has performed thus far. What are the biggest concrete differences going forward that our listeners should be aware of as we move into November 3rd?

Asma: In terms of how they'll actually handle COVID? It's hard to say not to look at Trump's past behavior in assessing how he may address the coronavirus pandemic. I say that because he's been president now for, I would say-- Where we were going on what? 200,000 deaths at this point. He has been the president in-charge. I think for a lot of voters, it is perplexing to say, how can we talk about President Trump's future sense of how to deal with this pandemic without assessing his past performance? That all being said, he and Biden have both put a high priority on getting a vaccine.

I think where they differ, though, is in the sort of emphasis on distribution. Joe Biden has emphasized a lot that it's not just about ensuring that you have a vaccine that's ready to go, but it's the ability to figure out, how will you actually equitably distribute that vaccine and also implement it? He believes that there needs to be public buy-in for this vaccine and that some folks don't necessarily aren't going to be lining up eagerly to get this vaccine. Well, President Trump has put a large emphasis, I would say, on just the speed of getting that vaccine out rather than focusing as much in his public comments on how to actually distribute that vaccine.

Brian: Let's take another call. Here is Nick in Raleigh, North Carolina. Nick, you're on America: Are We Ready? Hi.

Nick: Hi. I guess what I was going to state and perhaps ask was that I believe whether Democratic or Republican, the response should be a national one. I think the main differences between Biden and Trump, at least how I perceived them, is Biden kind of advocates a national approach. I making mask-wearing a national thing. Why I say that is because if we have to wear masks in North Carolina but Virginia doesn't, the virus doesn't respect like that political delineation there between the states.

The caller from New Jersey had said that what is Trump doing successfully that he hasn't contracted it yet. I'm not sure, but I do know that whether he's visiting or doing rallies in Florida, Oklahoma, or Wisconsin that the rules that surround him and contact with him don't change. He's not adapting differently to Florida than he would North Carolina.

Brian: Well, remember, we established earlier that anybody who comes in close contact with the President has to test negative beforehand. That's what he's doing consistently. Nick, thank you very much. Do you want to respond to Nick at all, Asma?

Asma: I think the point of emphasizing Joe Biden's desire to have a more national response is an important point. Though I will also make notice of the fact that Biden has been pushed repeatedly by journalists on exactly how he would implement any sort of a national mask mandate. He had to walk that language back and suggest that it would be his belief that he would like to highly encourage people to model that behavior.

There's a recognition that being president, that authority doesn't entirely necessarily lie with him. This comes back to maybe, again, this idea of modeling different behavior. We had in President Trump, somebody who himself did not wear a mask publicly, very rarely, I should say, would wear a mask publicly, has held large indoor rallies and events at a moment in time when referring from scientists that those things are not safe. You see in Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, just a desire to be more cautious in that regard.

I think it's worthwhile, though, pointing out that part of how President Trump has been able to be just, I think, so careful, it has been this rapid testing of everyone who comes into close contact with him. I'm somebody who's covered Joe Biden for a while. Biden was not necessarily having that same dynamic. We as reporters who covered him for a while were doing temperature checks and wearing masks. It was not as if every reporter who covered him was getting a rapid test every time that we were in the same room with him.

Christina: Asma, can you bring us up to date on the issue of the Centers for Disease Control posting and then removing a warning about aerosols? That's the small particles of virus that you can get infected from indoors even if you're more than six feet away from an infected carrier. What's your reporting saying there?

Asma: To be honest, this is a story that I will say I relied a lot on our own science reporters for. I can only speak to it second-hand, which is, as you mentioned, the fact that there was information put up about the air transmission of this virus that was put up, removed. It seemed to be unclear as to why this was removed. It didn't seem to be particularly contentious advice or guidance, but I don't have first-hand reporting on that.

Brian: Let's take another call then. Sarah in Cincinnati, you're on America: Are We Ready? Hi, Sarah.

Sarah: Hi, sorry. I just wanted to say that the question of, "is there a difference between?" I think the answer is yes. I think it's a very clear yes. There's a difference between how Democrats and Republicans or even conservatives and liberals, if you want to use different labels, have handled this. I think it's really clear that the Democrats or the liberal side has said, "Hey, scientists, this is it. This is your job. Tell us what to do. Guide us. Lead us. Help us get through this with the least number of deaths and least number of illnesses."

We've seen that that's the guidance that's going with. We see from the Republican side, being led from a side that wants to value money and business which, yes, we need to get businesses through this, but values the financial side rather than the human life side besides that mortalities and stuff. We still don't know. I think also the Republicans are pushing very hard the number of deaths when we don't know what the long-term health consequences of this virus are. We're already seeing high rates of probably permanent cardiac and lung function deficits and potentially even neurologic deficits from people who've had COVID.

Even if you don't die, that's not necessarily the whole thing. I think even though there should be a unified national response like we would see in a war time, this is a war, we are instead seeing political infighting and treating this as if science and facts and reason are something to be against. I think that that is not going to look-- history's not going to look favorably on conservatives and Republicans for that. I think in 20, 50 years when we look back, that's not going to be a good look for Republicans and conservatives. Certainly, it's something we should be aware of now.

Brian: Sarah, thank you so much. Asma, in the context of your reporting, is there a meaningful scientific debate? The guest we had earlier is from an economics-oriented think tank, though he's a long-time healthcare reporter with a conservative perspective but with an economic spent, do you see from your reporting-- and I realize you're covering the presidential campaign, not science per se. Do you see citing of science equally or even substantially by both sides or really, as the caller suggests, only really from one side?

Asma: We see a greater emphasis, I would say, on trusting the advice of scientists from Joe Biden in his public remarks. That's actually the specific language they'll often use. I mentioned earlier, the Democrats have been extremely hesitant to go out and doorknock and physically campaign. For a while, I would ask Democrats, both state-level Democrats as well as the presidential campaign, about their reasoning.

I would often be told just the same standard response, which is that we are listening to scientific advisors. We've been talking to scientists. They are advising us that X, Y, and Z. I think that on the contrary side from President Trump, we have seen him give advice that has been countered to what some of his own public health experts have advised, whether that's, again, on mask usage or on a particular drug usage that did not yet seem to be actually validated.

I would say beyond not necessarily even just trusting science and referring to scientists, we've actually seen many incidences at this point now where President Trump has actually countered the advice that he is being given by his own public health experts. While we might see them there physically giving advice, the President does not seem to always at least publicly agree with that advice that's being given.

Christina: Asma, the first debate is a week from tonight. The topics for the debate have already been released. COVID-19 is on the list. As someone who's followed Joe Biden and also the President quite closely, how do you think the President is going to be able to defend his record with COVID-19 and the 200,000 deaths that we've seen thus far?

Asma: I think that's an excellent question and I'm really eager to see how he attempts to defend his record. I will say that we saw a glimpse of this during the Republican convention of him just talking. It was a counterfactual narrative because if you look at public opinion polling, the President, his favorability in terms of how people believe he's handled the pandemic, I believe it's below 40% and it wasn't always that low.

You can go back to March and April where I would say it was about 50-50 in terms of where the public stood on how he was doing. He has lost support and he's lost support specifically amongst some Democrats and independents who were willing to think that, initially, he seemed to be headed down the right path. What I will say you consistently hear from Republicans is that this is an unforeseen natural circumstance that no president could have been fully equipped for.

That is the defense I've often heard from Republicans. Secondly, they will say that he has tried his best to focus on the economy and the need in their view to restart and re-jump the economy. At this point in time on one issue, I will say, that we have seen President Trump seem to do better than Joe Biden on in public opinion polling has been the economy. That's been fairly consistent over this summer.

Brian: You mentioned that one of the differences with respect to going forward is how they would handle vaccine distribution as well as development. Here's a little bit of Joe Biden on that.

Joe Biden: Someday, the virus is going to go away by a miracle. Even if it does nothing, it's going to go away by a miracle. It won't go away like a miracle. In fact, even if we get a vaccine, it will not be available for most populations well under 2021.

Brian: Of course, the beginning of that when he said the virus would go away like a miracle, he was quoting Donald Trump and mocking Donald Trump saying that. What would be his vaccine policy? What if they asked him to distinguish his vaccine policy from Donald Trump's vaccine policy? What would Joe Biden say? You've been covering the Biden campaign.

Asma: Yes, he talks a lot about the need to trust scientists and he's outlined because at some point earlier on, I would say at this point is a couple of weeks back, but President Trump's campaign and the White House were accusing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris of being anti-vaxxers because they had expressed some reservations about whether or not they would fully trust a vaccine that came out and whether or not they feel like the public would fully trust a vaccine under President Trump.

At that point in time, Biden and his campaign outlined a couple of key things that they feel need to occur in order for a vaccine to just have the trust of the American public. One of those being that this vaccine, whoever develops it, they felt needed to be thoroughly vetted by a range of independent scientists and experts. In terms of how he intends to actually distribute it, I will say, candidly, I don't have clear guidance on how Biden intends to clearly distribute it.

He has just emphasized in his campaign, has emphasized the fact that that is a monumental, logistical challenge. They do not feel like Trump has had great practice in actual logistical processes in the past. They point to the White House has struggles in terms of equitably distributing PPE earlier on during this pandemic. They feel like the President's strong suit has not been logistical issues and that vaccine distribution will likely entail a massive logistical operation.

Christina: Asma, earlier, we played a clip of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson re-shutting some things after a second wave started to take hold. In Israel, the shutdown is even more sweeping after they had seemingly gotten the virus under control. Now, we see things in India and the city of Madrid as well each in their own way. It's all pretty ominous in a lot of ways. Do you see political ramifications here from these early examples of a second wave and reopenings that say didn't work out so well and what should we expect on our side of the pond?

Asma: Political ramifications, gosh, that's such an interesting-- I think that, for a while, in terms of political ramifications from COVID, I will say I saw a lot of that throughout the summer. I think there's so many additional moving parts to our presidential campaign at this point. You speak about a second wave. I think a lot of scientists and some politicians have been warning the public that the United States is very plausibly likely to undergo and to suffer from the second wave at some point and that things will be bad. We've heard this from public health experts, likely once flu season and COVID are combined together.

That all being said, I just think in this particular moment that we're in, there are other political ingredients that are affecting the campaign. Whether that's now an open Supreme Court seat, whether that's the economy which is, of course, tides to COVID. I think for some Republicans, that's seen as an independent factor, or whether that's issues around racial justice and policing. I will say that in my view as impactful as COVID is, no doubt it is hugely impactful, I think, in terms of its potential political ramifications. When I talk to voters, it is not the only factor that's of utmost importance to them in terms of how they're thinking about the November election.

Brian: I guess I was just thinking with that question in our last 30 seconds, Asma, that if Trump is running on reopen, reopen, reopen, which he is, and we now see the other countries that we compare ourselves to, the UK, most closely where Boris Johnson was on the same page of Donald Trump once upon a time as Donald Trump, and then they did reopen. Now, he's ordering it re-closed in the UK because they're having a spike. Trump is saying, "Open, open, open." One would think there might be political ramifications to that. We have 15 seconds.

Asma: Sure. Just really quickly, I will say. I don't think that a lot of Republican base voters will look to what's happening in the UK as indicative of what they think would happen here and that Trump's base has been very loyal to him for a while. In my view, this election largely hangs on turnout more than persuasion.

Brian: Asma Khalid covering primarily the Biden campaign for NPR and co-host of NPR's Politics Podcast. Thank you so much.

Asma: You're welcome.

Brian: We are out of time for this hour of America: Are We Ready to Vote in a Pandemic? America: Are We Ready? is produced by Megan Ryan, Lisa Allison, and Zach Gottehrer-Cohen. That's Jason Isaac at the audio controls. With Fordham University Political Science Professor Christina Greer, I'm Brian Lehrer.

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