Pushkin.

It's hard to read the news these days without asking yourself, how did we get here?

Fiasco is a history podcast for the co-creators of Slow Burn.

In our first season, Bush v. Gore, we examined an unmistakable turning point in American

politics, the 2000 election, which resulted in a high-stakes stalemate, ended with one of the most

controversial rulings in Supreme Court history.

So if you're trying to make sense at the present moment, check out Fiasco, Bush v. Gore.

Listen on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

From Pushkin Industries, this is deep background, the show where we explore the stories behind

the stories in the news. I'm Noah Feldman. Today we have a return guest, and in fact, he may be the

most important guest that we've had this year. It's Mark

Lipsich, whom I spoke to first back in February. He's professor of epidemiology at the Harvard

Chan School of Public Health. He's director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics there.

And he was then and has continued to be one of these central voices in sounding the warning about

COVID-19 and in modeling what good responses look like and figuring out what's going to happen

next. With the election coming and the possibility of vaccines on the horizon, I wanted to

reconnect with Mark to see how he reads the current situation.

Mark, thank you so much for being here. I feel like I've lived a lifetime since we spoke in

February when you were in early warning mode, but I bet you've lived 10 or 100 lifetimes since then.

How you've slept is hard for me to even imagine. Let me start by

just asking you, how are you holding up in this process? Doing okay. It's frustrating to be

watching governments, including our own national government, ignoring very clear science.

...