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 theHeart 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. Ever since COVID-19 broke out, I have been extremely eager to hear the thoughts of Pardis Zabetti.

Pardis has actually been on the show before this outbreak, talking about her extraordinary work

on Ebola.

She's a computational biologist in the Harvard Biology Department and the Broad Institute.

She's also a professor in the Department of Immunology

and Infectious Disease at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. In short, Pardis is the person

who knows the most of anybody that I know about the complexity of developing understanding of a virus

and what you do under circumstances of outbreak. I knew that whatever Pardis was thinking about right in this moment

would be fascinating and significant

and would shed new light on the circumstances that we're facing,

how we reopen, how we track the virus, and how we reach a vaccine.

And sure enough, Pardis had extraordinary things to say on all of the above.

Pardis, thank you so much for being with me.

When we last spoke, which is just a few months ago,

...