I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Friday, December 4th.

So how much shutting down is the right response to the record coronavirus deaths and hospital

demand that we're seeing right now.

How much does it hurt when Democratic Party politicians don't practice what they preach about not

traveling and avoiding crowds? What's the right order for distribution of the coronavirus vaccine?

And how should public health officials deal with the weirdly opposite challenges of telling some people they can't get vaccinated yet and convincing others to take the shots at all if they're opposed to it?

These latest pandemic challenges come as the daily national death rate from the virus top 3,000 people a day the last few days for the first time since

the pandemic began. Think about it. That happens to be about the same number of people who were

killed on 9-11. We're now experiencing a 9-11 every day in terms of Americans getting killed.

But unlike 9-11, this is no surprise attack, right?

We know the enemy and the sacrifices that are needed to stop the slaughter.

We're at a moment when patriotism meets public health.

Are enough of us capable of enlisting in the Army of personal responsibility

and smart public policy to ward off the worst of this

attack. With me now is Dr. Darrak Cass, emergency medicine physician at the Columbia University

Medical Center and a Yahoo News medical contributor. Dr. Cass, thanks for joining us again.

Welcome back to WNYC. It's a pleasure, Brian Oways. Let me start with a new wave of

closings that are being ordered and this idea of patriotism meeting public health. Joe Biden said

yesterday, he would ask the country to wear masks when in the company of people outside their

households for his first 100 days in office as president, and that that

could make a significant difference. I don't know if many more people will do it than are doing

it today, just based on that, given the polarization around the issue. But do you think that

...