A new analysis of the pandemic

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There are lots of stories to tell about the Covid pandemic. Most of them, on some level, are about politics, about decisions that affected people’s lives in different — and very unequal — ways. Covid hasn’t disappeared, but the crisis has subsided. So do we have enough distance from it to reflect on what we got right, what we got wrong, and what we can do differently when the next crisis strikes? Professor Frances E. Lee — co-author of In Covid's Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us — thinks we do. In this episode, she speaks with Sean about how our politics, our assumptions, and our biases affected decision-making and outcomes during the pandemic. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Frances E. Lee, professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton and co-author of In Covid's Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	We all have bad days and sometimes bad weeks and maybe even bad years.
0:04.9	But the good news is we don't have to figure out life all alone.
0:08.6	I'm comedian Chris Duffy, host of Ted's How to Be a Better Human podcast.
0:12.6	And our show is about the little ways that you can improve your life, actual practical
0:16.4	tips that you can put into place that will make your day to day better.
0:19.9	Whether it is setting boundaries at work or rethinking how you clean your house,
0:24.1	each episode has conversations with experts who share tips on how to navigate life's ups and downs.
0:30.0	Find how to be a better human wherever you're listening to this.
0:34.7	Support for this show comes from ServiceNow, a company that helps people do more fulfilling work,
0:40.1	the work they actually want to do.
0:42.4	You know what people don't want to do?
0:44.3	Boring, busy work.
0:46.0	But ServiceNow says that with their AI agents built into the ServiceNow platform,
0:49.9	you can automate millions of repetitive tasks in every corner of a business,
0:54.9	IT, HR, customer service, and more.
0:58.8	And the company says that means your people can focus on the work that they want to do.
1:03.7	That's putting AI agents to work for people.
1:06.7	It's your turn.
1:07.6	You can get started at servicenow.com slash AI-agents.
1:16.7	There are lots of stories to tell about the COVID pandemic, but almost all of them, if you drill down, or about politics, about who makes the decisions,
1:28.3	who questions those decisions, who matters, who suffers, who survives, who doesn't, and why.
1:36.3	But what did we get right? What did we get wrong?
	...

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