Welcome to the Commune podcast. My name is Jeff Krasnow.

So a couple of weeks ago, I drove from L.A. to Phoenix to attend a conference, which is nothing I would recommend doing in an electric vehicle,

unless you enjoy frantically looking for functional charging stations

and boarded up desert towns.

But in any case, on a stretch of empty highway between Blythe and Phoenix,

I recorded this episode as I drove, which is also something I might

not recommend, but it's neither scripted or edited, minus stripping out a few random barks from my GPS.

As you will hear, this episode recounts actually another car ride that I had with my

daughter Phoebe last summer in which I tried to address her question, Daddy, did the vaccine work?

And I'm sure she is not alone in her confusion. This episode is my attempt to deliver

a nuanced answer to that question without the sensationalism and hyperbole that so often accompany

this topic.

Over the past few years, we have experienced a wicked social polarization,

and no issue has divided us more than the vaccine.

And I've watched so many people on all sides of the equation attempt to score points on the vaccine issue, essentially

sowing fear and distrust, and then riding in on the pony of fear and distrust, often to garner

influence.

Now, absent from almost all of these wild claims and opinions is nuanced conversation.

The social media is just truly an awful sandbox for sane public discourse.

And this is one of the reasons I'm so fond of podcasts as it provides a venue to rigorously unpack complicated issues. So over the next

30 minutes or so, I will say things that you may agree with and I will likely say things

that will challenge your opinions. I'll bumble some sentences and maybe mix up a couple of stats.

...