It's Brian Lehrer, and this is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Thursday, March 12th.

The public health response and the political response to the coronavirus continue to include things we never thought we'd see.

President Trump and House Democrats each have prevention and relief proposals now from the

president's tax relief and travel ban for most Europeans to the Democrats' emergency food

assistance and paid emergency leave bill for workers. And of course, there's all the NBA and

March Madness News and

Tom Hanks having the virus and everything else. Let's talk about both the public health and

political developments with Dr. Ashwin Vassan, Population and Family Health Professor at the Columbia

University Mailman School of Public Health, President and CEO of Fountain House, a community mental health organization,

and he was health policy advisor to the Pete Buttigieg presidential campaign. Dr. Vassan,

thank you for coming on with us. Thanks for having me, Brian. It's great to be here.

And it looks to me like you've been focusing at least somewhat on the federal response.

So let me first ask about where you might see common ground.

I mentioned some of the temporary financial relief measures being proposed by House Democrats

and some being proposed by the president. What do you think they might get consensus on fairly quickly

to start helping Americans who are economically hurt by the epidemic.

You know, Brian, thanks for, thanks for having me. It really is unprecedented times, and it just

goes to show you that, you know, public health is really the thing you don't really think about

until you need it. And so, you know, just putting that out there,

it really does require strong, clear, evidence-based federal leadership and good coordination

between the federal government and state and local agencies. And, you know, I fear we're not,

...