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. And right now, the only story that anyone is talking about is coronavirus.

In order to make sense of coronavirus, we decided to speak to Siddharth Mokurji,

who is probably the foremost interpreter in my generation of the meaning of disease and how it affects our daily lives.

You probably know his book, The Emperor of All Malities,

A Biography of Cancer, which won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. You may also

know his 2017 book, The Gene, and Intimate History. Siddharth is a voice of reason, logic,

and thoughtfulness, and he's the person I wanted to hear from at exactly this moment of panic.

So, Sid, maybe we could start by my just asking you, how have you been thinking medically,

statistically, personally, or otherwise about the coronavirus epidemic as it gradually rolls itself out?

Well, so there are several questions in that because there's a, I've been thinking different medically, personally and statistically,

but let me just tell you a very broad sort of landscape view.

Right now we're in a moment of some degree of confusion.

There are, like any epidemic or like any virus, coronavirus has some absolutes.

In other words, there's some absolute things about the virus that are determined by its biology

...