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[Music] a new study in the Lancet finds that while state governments use of protective mandates were associated with lower covid infection infection rates as were mask use lower mobility and higher vaccination rates mandates did not make a noticeable difference when it came to overall death rate yeah this is an interesting finding published by the Lancet so it did find so they were comparing states with different mandates for different periods of time and they were saying what they're looking at you did get lower cases for mass lockdowns and vaccination but you only got an actual lower death rate for vaccination did produce lower death rate but not the other interventions and this is some interesting you know breaking down places where there are there is less interpersonal trust was associated with higher vaccination and then thus fewer death rates things like that um yeah I mean it's interesting conservatives are uh the post-millennial is the site that uh this has come to our attention from which is a conservative website so they're kind of saying aha see the interventions did not you know create uh did not protect against death uh with with the acknowledge exception of vaccines um but then you know you could probably a liberal-minded person could look at it and say well but we were you know had fewer sick people by doing these things um yeah I think that's a really good point uh and one that RFK Jr made in a an interview recently is that science reporting in particular often gets misreported all over the place in every direction because scientists release a study and then relatively lay people they're picking it up on the AP and translating in ways that make not a lot of sense and I think that's part of how we get these raccoon dog stories as part of how we get a story every other month that eggs are good for you know eggs are bad for you they'll kill you immediately you know all of this kind of stuff is based on this so most science is a little bit more nuanced than that and while it is true that you can frame this and it is accurate to do so that some of these really significant covet interventions didn't have any effect on the death rate there's some really meaningful interesting correlations here I think the point that you raised about public trust is an important one you know how from a policy perspective an interpersonal perspective can we get to a point where there's more public trust it doesn't do is public trust and gender through people going to schools together doing certain kind of community service works together having some kind of Public Service conscription together you know what as a society would make us trusting not that that I would fight tooth and Nails I mean there's trusting and then there's two trusting but uh but it you know it's it's it does show that uh you know initially there's lower vaccination rates in poor communities black communities because there's less trust you brought it the other day poverty so what the the stats say a lower poverty rate a higher education rate are both correlated with better outcomes in addition to interpersonal trust another argument for the value of Education states where a larger percentage of the populations identify as Black Or Hispanic but again there's these correlations with poverty for those kind of racial metrics as well higher public spending and more public health personnel at the state level were not correlated with better outcomes which is one of these that might be an argument that's by conservatives well and I think it cut all over the way I think it speaks to the priorities because again you know you since you weren't seeing a difference in the death rates unless you were doing vaccination really well it again speaks to the fact that while yes technically there are stories you know people who is young healthy died of covid or have lost by and large the vulnerable population was the elderly or people with with with confounding health conditions could there have been more of an emphasis on protecting them or then when vaccines are being rolled out in emphasizing please get your get the elderly vaccinate what we heard is I mean like even even now the requirements for vaccination to the extent any still exists are on college students and it's just totally and it's it's not it's not treating the vulnerable population by and large well I I mean I do think that the advice is was and continues to be to vaccinate elderly people certainly older voters the messaging isn't it could have been tailored to them it could have been older voters were sorry older Americans were told to get vaccinated first they were first off the list you know when you were qualifying to get in fact I remember it took me a long time because I didn't work in public when I wasn't older all right but then there was some essential worker designation there was some other stuff thrown in there it should have just been by age like in descending order essentially no because that's what the data was I know another part of the puzzle is that even having a higher employment rate by one percent has a higher outcome a higher negative outcome so the idea I think is that people are going to work people who are essential workers who didn't have the luxury of staying home were more exposed and more of those people did die more of those people are also Black and Hispanic and on and on and on there's I mean it would take a lot to tease out some of these correlations here but that's that's significant and I remember my grandmother getting vaccinated first I remember getting myself vaccinated because I was going to go see her and I don't know about the elderly people in your life but they're they're they're on a regular the only people I know that are still kind of very much regularly on a booster schedule are people who are old and in homes and things like that where their risk is still really I think that someone we hear from the public health officials who emphasize everybody should get boosted or they did for years maybe now it's finally moved on maybe that's died off but I don't know like I agree with a lot of your criticisms on the messaging I do think that they were pretty clear about older people having being the most vulnerable at least as soon as they figure some of this stuff out look some of the stuff wasn't not everything the vaccines were unrolled it was it was very well known that the age skew of covid is is beyond what people can even like conceive of in their head yeah like the graph for coveted death is so exponential as age Rises yeah I mean and I I very clearly remember them saying that you prioritize uh elderly but maybe I'm wrong meanwhile a doctor and PhD student Kevin bass pointed out on Twitter that a recent paper from the Lancet showed coveted restrictions did not reduce covet deaths that's the one we're talking about meanwhile they exacerbated epidemics of violence drugs alcohol child suicide Etc destroyed the economy enrich the wealthy here's a graph from the study showing those points you were talking a minute ago about you know how do we build social trust and that you know if social trust is something that promotes Public Health you know think of the under my everything you were just talking about with the exception of no no drafting nothing of that nature but the community environments the school environments environments where there is socializing with your neighbors and building healthy communities and all that kind of stuff you know that that was all shut down during the pandemic and you know we can continue to have debates about the wisdom of doing that but but part of the problem is that itself harms social yeah I strongly believe in public education for a lot of reasons including that um when you get hit because it's public education you get increasing segregation by people going to their segregation by religion into religious schools segregation by class depending on the cost of the private institutions in ways that makes it so that people don't interact with each other who are different from them from different parts of the city that they live in in a college context there's a lot of literature a lot of research about how going to college lowers bigotry raises acceptance across racial groups gender groups sexuality Etc which is part of why there was such a concerted effort in the 1980s to defund public education because they were such sources there were such breeding grounds if you were for a lot of solidarity movements that led to a lot of social change that we today think of as very very useful but were um a threat to Capital into the broad belief that the status quo must be maintained so that the people who have a little bit the upper middle class the middle classes um don't feel like they have to lose anything in a zero sum game as people who don't have those same advantages claw themselves up from the bottom as opposed to thinking about whether or not there's other kind of economic systems and distributional systems that can spread the pie that the one percent Hoards so overwhelmingly a little bit more equally well I'll have to see if this study gets any additional pickup or pushback because as you say you know research comes out points to different ways we're still you know trying to work out yeah this Cuts all over the place yeah yeah I mean as does I mean that you know the basic underlying fact I think Dr fasci kind of conceded this when he was interviewed for the New York Times we talked about that the um like two or three weeks ago is that look there you know there was a wide variety of there was fluctuation in policies in between the states and in Europe and you know this in our peer countries the these people did Mass a little bit harder for a little bit longer and these people did lockdowns a little less and but what you got is somewhat worse outcomes in the U.S uh but does that just reflect our we have our underlying health is much worse yeah understand this is making this pitch about better outcomes in Florida but the study says that the the politics of the governor the political affiliation of the state Governor was not associated with lower infection or death rates so that's not pro anybody it's just that it's a wash it doesn't matter for anybody um and but uh the vote you're the voting for Trump in 2020 was correlated the proportion of a state that did vote for Donald Trump in 2020 was correlated with worse uh Health outcomes from covid yeah again reflecting the probably reflecting the old people voted for Trump not getting vaccinated um perhaps yeah again that is what comes through in the data as the as the thing that was good for severe disease and death um that's it for today tomorrow on Rising Jessica Burbank and Amber athy will take the reins and we will be back uh next week we're off on Monday right it's my it's a holiday of sorts yes so we will see you after that please enjoy the holiday have a good one be sure to like share and subscribe so you never miss any of this content for those of you who prefer to listen while you're on the go we are now available anywhere you listen to podcasts bye-bye happy weekend [Music] thank you