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March 29, 2020 - The Ben Shapiro Show

37:59

Coronavirus with VP Mike Pence and Dr. Deborah Birx | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 88

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	There is real unity of purpose of coming together to confront the coronavirus and I'm confident that in the days ahead we'll have time to address those issues and put into place the kind of things that will give us visibility on any infectious disease outbreak in the future.
	As the country and the world have come to a standstill to focus on the COVID-19 outbreak, the Trump administration and the Coronavirus Task Force team members have been working every day to keep the American public safe, healthy, and informed.
	If you've been watching the news here on the Ben Shapiro Show or anywhere else, people are talking news.
	You've been seeing the daily press conferences at the White House.
	They've become a huge part of our news cycle as the team breaks down where we currently stand with the virus and provides new facts and reports to the American people.
	President Trump assigned Vice President Pence to head this task force in handling the response for the United States.
	The team includes many experts from the White House and other government agencies, along with the nation's foremost experts on infectious diseases.
	Among these professionals is Dr. Deborah Birx, who is serving as the team's response coordinator.
	Before this, she spent the last six years acting as the United States Global AIDS Coordinator, working to improve HIV prevention and treatment.
	Today, we're bringing you inside the Coronavirus Task Force.
	I'll be talking to both the vice president and Dr. Birx about how confident they are.
	We're not going to become like Italy.
	Their response to the media, not airing the white house press briefings and how long before all of this comes to an end.
	With the country practicing social distancing and self quarantining, we've got a bit of a different episode to bring you today.
	We'll be asking the Vice President of the United States and Dr. Birx the most pressing questions on everyone's mind right now.
	Now normally, this is where I'd say we'll have some bonus questions at the end of the conversation for Daily Wire members.
	Today, we're giving everyone the full interview.
	We've got a fantastic conversation with our guests and we want everyone to hear it.
	With that said, let's jump in with Vice President Mike Pence.
	Mr. Vice President, thank you so much for joining us.
	Obviously, maybe the busiest person in America.
	Really appreciate the time.
	So let's just jump right in.
	Obviously, the big worry right now about coronavirus is not just the mortality rate.
	It's the possibility of the system being overwhelmed a la Italy.
	That would be worst case scenario.
	What do you see as the possibility that that actually happens in areas of the United States?
	We're tracking it very closely.
	We're following the data.
	Clearly, Ben, in places like Washington State, California, and of course, the greater New York City area, where now more than half of the coronavirus cases in America have impacted, we're working closely with governors and with state health officials To make sure that we're addressing capacity needs.
	The good news is that you've seen hospitals all across those regions and across the country take the President's guidance to postpone elective surgery.
	Americans are cooperating with that.
	That's vastly increased the availability of bed space in those areas.
	and around the country.
	But the American people should know that we're going to do whatever it takes.
	We're building field hospitals in California, in Washington State, in New York.
	The Navy ship Comfort will be arriving on Monday in New York City.
	The Mercy will be in L.A. very soon.
	And And we're going to leave no stone unturned to make sure that our health care workers have the equipment that they need, and also that our health care system has the capacity to deal with people, not just those struggling with coronavirus, but of course every American that continues to deal with health challenges and health issues.
	Mr. Vice President, because our media is national in scope, there's always a lot of focus on the job of the federal government, what the federal government does.
	For folks who don't understand sort of how this federal system plays out, local, state, and federal, how exactly do responsibilities get divided up in terms of getting those resources and achieving those resources?
	Well, you make a great point, Ben, and that is that when it comes to health issues, as I learned when I was governor of the state of Indiana, it is the local health care workers and the local officials that are on the front lines.
	And then a response to a health crisis like infectious disease is managed at the state level and it's federally supported.
	It's one of the reasons why the President signed a National Emergency Declaration and we basically stood up the National Response Center at FEMA.
	Now we've got every state in the Union working directly with FEMA.
	We're working with the Congress to make sure federal and state agencies and authorities have the resources Uh, that they need.
	But, uh, I think the American people understand that the nature of our system, the way America works is, uh, with that state and local control, whether, whether it be healthcare issues, whether it be education, whether it be law enforcement, what we want to do at the federal level is stand by and empower those officials that are leading the effort on the ground.
	And that's the approach President Trump Has taken.
	And that being said, in the midst of all of that, it would be almost two weeks ago that the President issued the 15 days to slow the spread.
	And it's worth saying to all of your viewers and listeners that while there are areas of the country where there's significant outbreak, we just mentioned several of them, now we're tracking in the New Orleans area, the Detroit area, And people should absolutely listen to state and local health authorities about what's best to keep themselves and their family and their loved ones, particularly vulnerable loved ones, healthy.
	What every American can continue to do is to put the principles of the 15 days to slow the spread into practice.
	The great news is we're hearing it all over the country.
	Tens of millions of Americans have been using the drive-thru at a restaurant, avoiding gatherings of more than 10.
	Putting off non-essential travel, working from home.
	We have every confidence that as the data continues to unfold in the weeks ahead, we will see that the steps of the American people, of families and businesses around the country, across the board, has significantly impacted the spread of the coronavirus in our country.
	Uh, and ultimately saved lives.
	You know, that's the important thing, too, if I may bend, that the threat of the coronavirus, even to people that contract, uh, the disease, the threat of serious illness is very low.
	That for most Americans, especially young Americans like yourself, you'll have, in some cases, no symptoms, mild symptoms or flu-like symptoms.
	But there is a small percentage of Americans, particularly seniors with serious underlying health conditions, and anyone with an immunodeficiency for whom the threat of a serious health outcome is very real.
	That's why every American should be putting into practice the principles of the 15 days to slow the spread.
	There's no one in America Would ever want to inadvertently expose a vulnerable American to the coronavirus.
	And we've been so inspired the way people have taken that to heart, particularly young people across America.
	And we have no doubt that it's protected our vulnerable.
	No doubt that it's saved lives.
	Mr. Vice President, one of the things that I've really appreciated about the administration's response is the hesitance to cram down, using the powers of the federal government, any sort of solutions that could be done via the private sector.
	That's also brought a lot of criticism on the administration, people suggesting, of course, that the Defense Protection Act should have been invoked sooner or invoked differently.
	What should people know about why the administration didn't invoke, for example, the Defense Protection Act and start immediately, quote-unquote, nationalizing the supply chains or anything like that?
	Well, it's a really good point, and I think you've accurately described President Trump's approach in dealing with American industry.
	He did initiate the Defense Production Act, now the better part of two weeks ago.
	We did use it when he issued an executive order that empowered the Justice Department to aggressively prosecute people that are price gouging or hoarding critical medical supplies.
	But the really inspiring thing is that while the Defense Production Act gives the President the authority to order businesses to manufacture critical equipment in times of war or crisis, Frankly, Ben, every business that we have asked to step up has said yes.
	And the approach President Trump has taken, whether it be with major industries that have stepped forward, many of which are starting to manufacture ventilators, whether it be companies like Hanes that have started to manufacture surgical masks for the first time and distribute millions of those around the country, our first approach is to say, let's ask American businesses to join with us In an American response, and not surprisingly, American businesses are doing just that.
	Mr. Vice President, in one second I want to ask you about President Trump coming under fire for suggesting that we want to get back to work, which of course is true.
	We'll get to that in just a moment.
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	Mr. Vice President, obviously the administration has come under for a lot of criticism for even mentioning the possibility of reopening the economy at some point in the future, which has been bizarre to me because it seems to me that's the job of every government official is to try and determine How we get to the point where we can actually go back to work.
	We can't interminably inflate the currency or borrow from countries that are themselves experiencing now depressions or recessions.
	The fact that so many people are critical of even attempting to make those sorts of policy considerations is bizarre to me.
	But how exactly is the White House going about setting up the formula for figuring out when particular areas get back to work?
	What are the inputs on that formula and what does that look like?
	Is it more of an art or a science?
	Are there actual metrics being set up?
	Well, I like your last word, metrics.
	The word that I hear every single day is data.
	I mean, we have not just the best infectious disease scientists in the country, but the best in the world.
	that are part of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
	We are analyzing the data every day.
	Thanks to the public-private partnership that the president established with commercial labs, now we've done well over a half a million tests around the country.
	We're developing very quickly point-of-care tests that'll soon be available at doctor's offices around the country.
	We have a much better sense of the scope and the impact of coronavirus around America today because of the way the president has marshaled all of the resources of our healthcare system and those incredible commercial labs.
	But what we're doing now is taking that data on a day-by-day basis, sometimes hour-by-hour basis, and we're putting together the kind of modeling that will inform the president's decision.
	And, you know, the president's made it very clear.
	He wants to open the country up as soon as we responsibly can.
	He communicated to governors yesterday that as we approach the 15th day of 15 days to slow the spread, we would be offering additional guidance.
	But in the days ahead, we'll also be analyzing those areas of the country on a county-by-county basis, Ben, where there's actually very little outbreak.
	But then letting governors make the decision about whether to reopen schools, whether to reopen businesses.
	There'll always be a certain measure of social distancing until this time has passed and we have a vigorous vaccine for coronavirus and people will continue to practice those Those things.
	We're confident of that.
	But what the President recognizes is that it's not a choice between putting the health of America first and the economy first.
	A strong economy contributes to the health and well-being of the American people every day.
	And so the President is determined, following the data, listening to our health experts, to make sure that our governors have the guidance to be able to make the decisions about how soon they can open up Mr. Vice President, the media have obviously been unstintingly critical, shockingly, of the Trump administration throughout this entire process, ignoring the fact that the President did, in fact, shut down travel from China and then shut down travel from the EU.
	Dr. Fauci, of course, agreed with both of those decisions, which the media seemed to have ignored.
	With all of that said, what would you have done differently?
	What would the President have done differently if we had the data now, then, that we have now throughout this process?
	Well, I've been there from the very beginning, and I can tell you, back in January, when you remember, Ben, Washington was—most of Washington was focused on something else.
	This president marshaled all of our best scientists in the Oval Office.
	He sat down.
	He heard about the spread of the coronavirus in China.
	And while we would have appreciated hearing earlier about what was happening in Wuhan province when the president was presented that information, I was sitting next to the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office when he made the decision on the spot for the first time in the history of this country to suspend all travel from China.
	I was there when he made the decision to issue travel advisories for Italy and South Korea and screen all Americans traveling back to the United States from either one of those countries.
	Following on that, the decision about Europe, the UK, and Ireland.
	What the President has done in suspending travel had never been done before.
	And all of our health experts are convinced that it bought us invaluable time to do everything else the president has done.
	And that is marshal all the resources of the federal government.
	We trust that the Congress this week will complete its work on legislation to speed aid to working families, some $3,400 a year to a family of four in direct payments, payroll support for small businesses, for several months, support for our major industries, for several months, support for our major industries, but also those public-private partnerships, like with the commercial labs, like with our healthcare providers, like with industry that's made medical supplies work.
	I mean, when the president tapped me a little more than a month ago to lead the White House Coronavirus Task Force, he said, Mike, I want a whole-of-government approach.
	By that, he meant federal, state, local.
	But I knew very quickly that what he really meant, as I watched him lead, was a whole-of-America approach.
	And we have engaged the American people, the full power of American free enterprise.
	And I'm more confident every single day that that partnership is going to hasten the day that we will get past the coronavirus, that will protect our most vulnerable, and will heal our land.
	Mr. Vice President, a couple more questions.
	One, what do you make of the media, many of whom are deciding that they don't want to air these White House press briefings, which are incredibly informative, just because they think that they don't like what President Trump is saying?
	And second, when all of this is said and done, and we look back at this time, we look at what China did very early on, what should the repercussions internationally be for the fact that China lied about this to the WHO, that they didn't reveal the information to the world, that they allowed five million people to leave Wuhan province in the middle of a pandemic, And that in all likelihood right now, they're still lying about their numbers.
	They just shut down all of their movie theaters again, which I assume they would not be doing if there were actually no new cases of coronavirus in China.
	It's very important in the days ahead that we take the lessons that we've learned and apply them to international cooperation when it comes to the spread of infectious disease.
	I'm confident that we'll do that.
	The President spoke to President Xi last night and he spoke to all the G20 leaders yesterday.
	There is real unity of purpose of coming together To confront the coronavirus and I'm confident that in the days ahead we'll have time to address those issues and put into place the kind of things that will give us visibility on any infectious disease outbreak in the future.
	Well, Mr. Vice President, really appreciate your time here, and thank you so much for your leadership in what is a tough time.
	I'm not going to ask you to ballpark when we finally get out of this, but I know that the President has said weeks, not months.
	Do you hold by that, that it'll be weeks, not months?
	We do hold by that, but it really is in the hands of the American people.
	The truth is there are communities around the country where people need to heed their state and local authorities.
	The greater New York area, New York State, New Jersey, Washington State, California.
	People need to heed the counsel of their state and local officials.
	But if every American, Ben, particularly, let me say, the tens of millions of millennials who listen to and appreciate your broadcast and your voice, if you will put into practice the president's coronavirus guidelines, we can hasten the day that if you will put into practice the president's coronavirus guidelines, we can hasten the day that we move We can protect the most vulnerable among us and we can heal our land.
	But it will take all of us, including young Americans and millennials, to do it.
	But I have every confidence that Americans of every age are fully engaged.
	We've all stepped up.
	We're protecting our most vulnerable.
	And we'll get through this, Ben.
	I know with all my heart.
	Mr. Vice President, God bless you.
	God bless your family.
	And thank you so much for your time.
	Thank you.
	Thank you, Ben.
	Next up, we're talking with Dr. Deborah Birx.
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	Dr. Deborah Brooks, thank you so much for joining the program Really, thank you so much for the time.
	I want to start by asking, obviously, a lot of people are worried about the overwhelming of medical resources, as we've seen in Italy, that seems to be sort of the chief worry in New York City.
	What's your confidence that places like New York City are going to be able to handle the influx of coronavirus patients coming in, that there will be enough ICU beds or ventilators?
	Well, I think all of us are tracking day by day, minute by minute, the number of beds, the bed utilization, the ventilator utilization across all of New York City, realizing that we have built additional hospitals there, and of course, we're bringing the ship up.
	So, between all of those pieces together, I think we have a very high confidence level.
	Otherwise, we would be bringing in more materiel for New York City.
	And Dr. Brooks, you were criticized this week for explaining to the media that perhaps they shouldn't be using all of the most extreme sort of predictions of how bad this pandemic was going to be.
	And obviously, there have been a wide variety of sort of predictions as to both mortality rate and infection rate.
	How do you determine what you think the mortality rate of COVID-19 is, as well as the infection rate?
	And why do you think the media are playing up sort of the most extreme examples of how many people they think are going to be infected or die?
	Well, we use data.
	So we start out by looking at the models very early on.
	We were all using models.
	And then we actually go to the actual data of what happened in South Korea, what happened in China, what's happening in Spain and Italy.
	And then we adjust our assumptions based on what's happening in real life on the ground.
	Models are terrific.
	And I think they've been really helpful in being able to predict how our mitigation methods should work when we put them all together.
	And so that part of the modeling is terrific.
	But the predictions around the number of Americans who will get infected, and I think critically, more importantly, the number of Americans that will actually have significant disease, are two very different things.
	And so that's why we've been tracking very closely real ground experience of what's happening in each of the countries.
	It seems like a lot of those statistics are based on the amount of testing available.
	We don't, at this point, have testing in place for seroprevalence, for antibodies, so we can't tell how many people have actually had it and been cleared of it.
	Obviously, testing is not wide enough at this point that we can even tell who has it and is asymptomatic, which may be ten times the number of people who have it and are symptomatic, which suggests that the mortality rates that are being bandied about are maybe an order of magnitude Too high.
	That's certainly, you know, we've seen that the numbers that the WHO originally put out, three to four percent on this thing, seem to be far too high.
	Where would you peg at this point the range of possible mortality rates on COVID-19?
	Well, in those few sentences, you summarized exactly what's happening.
	So that was brilliant.
	So, I mean, what the part of this is, is how many people are really asymptomatic.
	So we have case detection, and we're pretty confident on that.
	Those are cases that come to the hospital.
	Those are cases that we've tested at the hospital.
	Our testing rates in hospitals are running about 30, 40 percent.
	So that still shows that 70, 60, 70 percent of the individual, the patients coming to the hospital with severe respiratory disease are not COVID.
	We're tracking that very carefully, but you really captured what is our biggest question.
	Our biggest question is how much asymptomatic individuals are out there, and are they actively spreading the virus unknown to them?
	And so, I think we're very confident in the cases.
	We're very confident in understanding how many of those cases that percent will go to severe disease.
	What we're not confident in is the total number of people that are infected, and you really captured that well.
	The way to do it, and the way we will be able to do it, is look at antibody levels, because those are preserved for long periods of time, for weeks, months, and potentially even years.
	So, we'll be able to figure it out after we move through the crisis, and we're trying to bring testing on board, but we're very interested in how many people are asymptomatic versus how many people present with symptoms.
	So, Dr. Brooks, in one second, I want to ask you about the possibility of a second wave.
	We've seen some second wave infections in places like Hong Kong and China.
	We'll get to that in just one moment.
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	And Dr. Brooks, how long is this containable and what is the sort of prospect for containment?
	So we've seen in China, they just shut down their movie theaters again, which would suggest that obviously they are not completely sanguine about the prospects for coronavirus over there.
	We've also seen the possibility of second wave infections in places like Hong Kong and Singapore and Taiwan.
	Even if we let ourselves out from this generalized lockdown that's happening across the country, how confident are we that when we do that, there won't be a second wave of cases?
	And how can we mitigate the possibility of that?
	Well, that's really an important question.
	So what's happening in China right now is they're getting imported cases.
	So exactly what's happening to them is what happened to the rest of the world two and three months ago.
	And it's very interesting how everybody's reacting to it.
	I mean, they're shutting down things and saying people don't come into our country.
	And then very early in the epidemic, when the rest of the world was saying that, even the head of WHO said, well, we shouldn't stop air transport and traffic.
	It's very interesting.
	China has come around to the way the Europe and the United States is looking at it because they don't want new cases coming in to China.
	So everybody understands now how this has moved around the world.
	We have not seen second waves in the sense that sometimes in epidemics you'll have a first wave and a second wave internal to the country.
	What people are worried about now are receding new cases from outside.
	And I think that's what we remain very vigilant on.
	And so in the United States, we're tracking county by county to really understand what's happening at the most granular level.
	Because then you can really laser focus the kind of mitigation that each single county needs in each single state in order to be really focused on what needs to occur.
	So how exactly does the coordination go on in the White House between the public health team and the team that's more focused on the economic side?
	So the administration has come in for criticism for suggesting we have to reopen the economy, which is bizarre because presumably everyone wants to reopen the economy, only the question is when and how, which are of course the big questions.
	So how does that coordination go on?
	Because if you're a public health official, I would assume That your sole goal at this point is shut this thing down, shut it down as long as possible.
	And at the same time, there are health consequences and the economy is real.
	Millions of people losing their jobs this week.
	How do those needs get balanced out?
	How does that conversation go at the White House?
	Well, the good news is both the economic group and the public health group are meeting together every day.
	And what's been really seamless to me is both are using data.
	So they're used to looking at data in very real time.
	We're used to looking at data in real time.
	So we both very much appreciate what each person's bringing to the table.
	And those are really the critical discussions.
	I think you see early on, we were using really blunt instruments.
	And what do I mean by that?
	We were bringing in everything.
	You know, this is what closing the schools does.
	This is what social distancing does.
	This is what washing your hands multiple times a day.
	This is what probably the most important thing, if I can leave with your listeners, is don't touch your face because you forget where your hands have been.
	You've touched things.
	A toy, a knob, a this, a that, and now we know hard surfaces actually can maintain the virus.
	And so the teams are working together in a very seamless way because they understand The data that each other is presenting at the table.
	So that's been really helpful in bringing people together.
	Dr. Brooks, you mentioned not touching your face.
	There was a lot of talk very early on this sort of bifurcated message coming from the media and some members of government suggesting that face masks are useless.
	You shouldn't bother with them.
	But also health care professionals should have face masks.
	And that's very difficult, I think, for most people to understand why it is that the people who are most vulnerable to this should have face masks.
	But you should not.
	And obviously, we've seen a wide Prevalence of face masks in places like South Korea, that is heavily used.
	Do you think that that is a future path for the United States when we start to get back to work that people are using, if not N95 face masks, some other form of face mask that prevents them from maybe touching their mouth or their noses often, or at least coughing germs out into the air?
	Yeah, so Southeast Asia in general is very face mask oriented.
	I've worked over there for many decades and it started out very much around pollution and then adapted very much into preventing spread of viruses.
	So it's a culture that in general out in public normally wears face masks.
	So if you go to Vietnam, if you go to Bangkok, Thailand, You'll see a lot of people wearing face masks.
	So it's very normal in their culture.
	So adding that on was something they would naturally do.
	There's evidence that for someone who is sick, them wearing a face mask does protect others from getting infected.
	It's not totally clear that a face mask in the general public is really additive because your exposures are so You know, the one time you forget it and you're out in public.
	So in the hospital situation it makes a lot of sense, but in general public, and I think people will start looking at it.
	I think the biggest long-term consequences of this is people will learn how to interact verbally rather than always touching and handshakes because we know a lot of viruses are spread that way.
	So, Dr. Birx, in a second, I want to ask you about what other countries have been doing to deal with coronavirus because they haven't been nearly as restrictive as the United States.
	Could that work here?
	If not, why not?
	We'll get to that in just one second.
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	Dr. Brooks, there are some countries that have not taken these sort of really large-scale steps that you've seen in places like Italy or places like the United States.
	Obviously, South Korea comes to mind where there's heavy surveillance, but there was heavy testing originally.
	But even some countries like the Netherlands and Sweden have been a lot less restrictive in terms of public behavior.
	They've kept restaurants open, but told people to eat at the tables as opposed to eating at the bars.
	Some of them only recently shut down schools.
	Even New York Governor Cuomo suggested maybe it was the wrong thing to shut down the schools because you ended up sending kids home with their grandparents.
	So why do you think that those solutions in places like the Netherlands and Sweden were less likely to work in the United States?
	Or do you think that maybe those are going to be sort of the ways that we step back into a normal life as this thing begins to wane?
	Well, they're certainly reasonable to study them.
	And so I think decisions people have made is really helping us understand the impact of those decisions.
	When you have enough countries doing enough different things, it really helps you to be able to do this multivariate analysis to really get an idea of what worked better.
	Because what everybody did is put together everything that has been shown in the past to have an impact.
	Because after seeing the numbers and the logarithmic spread in Italy, I think everybody woke up.
	Now, Sweden would have many less seeds.
	What do I mean by that?
	So many less individuals from China go to Sweden in the winter because it's a little dark.
	Sun goes down about 2.30.
	So it's not a hot spot for visitation.
	May, when the sun is up a really long time and it's up till 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, they have a lot of visitors.
	And so I think they didn't get exposed to the virus in the same way that the majority of the more southern countries of Europe got exposed.
	And so you look at the rates in Switzerland, which is a multi-country dynamic situation.
	They also have pretty high rates of infection.
	So going back and really studying the Netherlands, all of this spread occurred by people traveling around the world.
	And so the difference between, people ask me all the time, what's the difference between SARS and this COVID-19?
	The difference was in 2003, almost no one traveled outside of China.
	And now millions and millions and millions of individuals travel around the world from China.
	It really exposed the entire globe to this new virus.
	It could have come from anywhere.
	We're just a very much more traveling group than we were in the past.
	And Dr. Birx, as we move forward with all of this, there's been talk in the media about not airing press briefings from the White House for some odd reason.
	Do you think that that is a good idea or a bad idea for the media to stop airing the press briefings or cut them short?
	I don't know why they would want to cut him short.
	I mean, there's a lot of data brought to that press briefing every single day.
	All of the decisions coming out of the task force is brought there.
	The new therapeutic studies that are ongoing, the new vaccine studies, the new testing platforms that we have available, the new innovations we brought in testing, that all comes out to that press briefing.
	And we've really been using those briefings to inform the American public about the changes that are being made to decrease bureaucracy and make more things available, as well as PEE, but also therapeutics, vaccines, and new options in testing.
	And it's a really important way for us to communicate to the American people.
	I don't know how the American people would know all of these changes and what options are available to them if they didn't have the press briefing.
	Dr. Birx, obviously the Trump administration, President Trump, has said that he is hoping for weeks, not months here, Obviously, we don't dictate how the virus goes, but we dictate our response to the virus.
	If you were to lay a timeline, a cross-table, obviously I'm not going to hold you to anything that you predict here, but if we were going to lay a timeline, are we talking weeks, not months?
	Are we talking the end of summer, the beginning of summer, before at least we start to make the transition back to people going back to work and people starting to interact with one another again, even if we are not shaking hands?
	Yeah, so if you look at the history of these RNA viruses, of which this is one, RSV, a virus that might infect your children, very common in the winter in children, so flu, these coronaviruses like this COVID-19 and RSV, they have a very seasonal peak normally.
	We don't have any experience with this virus, but I think for your audience, if they go back and look at what the normal seasonality of these viruses are, and then if they overlay that with the experience in both Italy, South Korea, and China, I think people can come to their own conclusions.
	That is exactly what we're looking at to really understand how this virus is moving through a population.
	But the one thing that can change weeks Well, Dr. Brooks, thank you so much for your time, and God bless you, and stay healthy out there.
	now because we know that this is many places the maximum time of spreading.
	And so that's why the president was very clear on these guidelines and how important they are that every American follows them.
	Well, Dr. Brooks, thank you so much for your time.
	God bless you.
	And stay healthy out there.
	Really appreciate your work on this.
	The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday special is directed by Mike Joyner and produced by Mathis Glover.
	Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
	Associate producer, Katie Swinnerton.
	Our guests are booked by Caitlin Maynard.
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	Editing is by Jim Nickel.
	Audio is mixed by Mike Carmina.
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	The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is a Daily Wire production.

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