#190 — How Should We Respond to Coronavirus?

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.6 • 29.1K Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2020

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Nicholas Christakis about the coronavirus pandemic. They discuss the likely effects on society, proactive vs reactive school closures, community transmission, false comparisons between coronavirus and flu, the imperative of social distancing, the timeline of the pandemic, Trump’s political messaging, the widespread distrust of expertise, the importance of "flattening the curve" of the epidemic, the possible failure of our healthcare system, gradations of personal response to this threat, and other topics.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Making Sense podcast. This is Sam Harris.
0:04.9	Okay, so it is all coronavirus all the time now in my world.
0:10.0	I'm actually going to be releasing two podcasts on coronavirus this week.
0:15.7	This is preempted the other things I have in the pipeline. As I think you know,
0:19.7	if you've been listening, I've been doing a series on nuclear war,
0:23.5	and I also have a podcast on child sexual abuse. The podcast seems to have taken a dark turn,
0:31.4	and I find that I cannot drop either of those podcasts into the current environment when we need
0:39.0	to be thinking about coronavirus and its resultant disease COVID-19. So I will try to find some good
0:46.7	cheer for you at some point, but let's talk about the problem at hand. So this is the first of
0:53.5	two podcasts I'll do this week if everything holds together. I just want to say a couple of things
1:00.9	upfront, less they get lost. I've been spending a fair amount of time focusing on this as many of you
1:06.8	have. I've been frankly alarmed by several encounters I've had with very smart people, both in person
1:15.2	and online, which have revealed a mismatch between what I think is true and what many smart people
1:24.4	believe. Here are a few statements which I think are true. COVID-19 is worse than the flu
1:33.3	in every way. So comparisons with the flu are highly misleading, and it is not just bad if you
1:43.6	catch it and you're over 70 or you're immunocompromised. There are healthy, fit people getting killed
1:51.4	by this virus. Another point I want to make up front, which we make at some length in this podcast,
1:59.4	is that even if we're all destined to catch this virus eventually, social distancing at this point
2:06.6	is essential. So called flattening the curve is actually a very big deal. So just think about this.
2:14.7	To get the worst flu in your life is bad, but to get it when the healthcare system has collapsed
2:22.8	under the pressure of everyone else getting this flu is very different than getting it when hospitals
2:29.1	are functioning normally. And the only lever within reach right now, in the absence of a vaccine,
	...

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