the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. our father in heaven, we sing of your steadfast love and proclaim

your faithfulness to all generations. our souls long for you, for we find strength and joy in your presence. bless our senators. lord, teach them to trust you even during life's storms. may they find strength and joy in the wisdom of your promises. help them to remember that you have said that nothing can separate them from your love. lord, empower them to seek in every undertaking to know and do your will. we pray in your mighty name, amen.

the president pro tempore: please join me in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the president pro tempore: under the previous order, leadership time is reserved. mr. heinrich: mr. president? the president pro tempore: the senator from new mexico. mr. heinrich: i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. the president pro tempore: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

mr. leahy: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, i ask consent the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. leahy: mr. president, i know a lot of negotiations have been going on in the bill that will soon be before us. and i appreciate the senators in both parties have done that. but sometimes we forget there are hundreds of other people who work on it. i know the members of the senate appropriations committee have been working extremely hard. i think of people like chuck keifer and others in our committee who've given up weekends, evenings, they were working many until last evening on the work that they were doing. because we can say what we want to do, but then you've got to write it down. the same thing happened with the bill that fortunately passed

unanimously here to reimburse our national guard, to pay the back pay and other necessities of the capitol police, to try to repair the damage and improve the situation after what happened, the terrible things that happened on january 6, to call for higher protections for covid, for everybody who works here in the capitol -- staff, professionals, everybody. i mean, this is from those who clean the capitol to those who guard the capitol. they all need this kind of protection. and with the help of jeanne shaheen and others, we were able to put in additional money and changes in the law to help us

bring our -- bring translators back from afghanistan, people who had worked, put their lives on the line for our military, and bring them to safety. as soon as first president trump and then president biden said we are leaving, their lives, and the lives of their families were greatly endangered by the taliban, and now they're back. but i mention that because, i mean, sometimes i might say -- only half in jest -- the senators are merely constitutional impediments to their staffs. but we are very fortunate to have some of the brightest women and men anywhere in the staffs of the senators of both parties, and certainly in those who

administer the senate, including those who are presently sitting, preparing to help us on everything from points of order to making sure the right papers are done and that the votes are counted properly. i see all of these people working hard here today. when i came into the capitol, everybody from those who have to follow and make a copy of what i say on the floor on through -- i any hear anybody say, boy, i wish i wasn't here.

i'm sure just about everybody had other plans for saturday and sunday. instead, they were here. and i think we owe a great debt of gratitude to those who have come here, who are helping us perform our duties. i hope the senators on both sides of the aisle will take note of that, try to bring these things to a conclusion, of course have whatever votes we need, but keep in mind that there are hundreds -- thousands of people working in the capitol whose schedules are oftentimes disrupted because of our schedules. they do it. they help us. they support us. we could not do our job without them. and i hope we will take note of that and help them in reaching a conclusion -- or at least give

some finality to what we're doing. i'm willing to say here whatever hours are necessary, but i'm hoping that we will know what those hours are so that the hundreds, even thousands of other people that work here in the capitol can go about planning for themselves, their families, their friends, whatever the need be. so, mr. president, i would note that there is -- well, the distinguished presiding officer is here and i'm here in the senate. i'm not holding up anything because there's no other senator seeking recognition, but i hope this may be coming to a conclusion. and with that, i will yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

in my state over 700 bridges, we notice the potholes in many of the reason highways, nor airports resemble third world nations, not the united states of america. we've not kept up with modern technology and we know that many of our shorelines are dealing with unprecedented effects of sea levels. and also covid-19 and that high-speed internet connectivity is not a nice to have but it is essential rated in the providing officer has taken legislative lead on. we know that we have talked about infrastructure in the past and now we can finally do something. and that's why no am proud to be part of this bipartisan effort working with the white house to

produce the historic piece of legislation. $550 million, a new spending over five years that in every category just mentioned will make historic investments. i've been a little surprised in truth, one of our colleagues on the other side were not part of the bipartisan group. as suddenly said, that we can't do infrastructure now, and when trump was an come another find excuses for not. in a little bit surprised that even when some of the colleagues on my side of the aisle, when the deal we structured is literally twice as much in the earlier negotiations were between president biden and some of the republican committee chairs and leaders. and there has been some in a sense of infrastructure, it

should not be that hard to do why is it taking us 30 years to get to this moment. i hope, and i know we are finalizing the last couple pieces of legislative language and i hope that we will get them finished as soon as possible. so that we can get this bill on the floor and have amendments in a debate but at the end of the day, the historic legislation and finally put our money where our mouth have been in terms of talking about the needs of infrastructure in this country. i know madame president, not a lot of people are rushing to the floor today so i'm going to take an extra minute or two. it does not mean that you have to stay with it for each moment but i want to talk about this for a few moments. in terms of what this will do for my state, or the commonwealth of virginia. and the commonwealth of virginia, investment and if instructor has been something

that has eluded us for years and when i was governor, i tried to find funding for northern virginia and roads to help put forward the bipartisan support tax referendums in virginia for the roads. we were partially successful in getting that done. a number of years later, a subsequent government, managed to make a down payment on some of the infrastructure needs in virginia. but not really address on a more comprehensive way the commonwealth needs. so i'm going to take a moment now and talk about section by section in virginia, what this bipartisan white house supported record infrastructure investment will mean to the people of

commonwealth of virginia. let me start with roads infant roads, southeast virginia, the peninsula, is that most at risk from concerns about sea level rise and questions about resiliency. more than any other region and the whole country, with the exception of new orleans. the infant roads, the local leaders are navy, nonprofits, businesses and they all come together and said that we need to make sure that we grapple with sea level rise is ranked in those communities is the number one issue. well you passes legislation, $47 billion will go into sea level rise prevention and resiliency. that will mean a whole host a

project in portsmouth, and virginia beach, and chesapeake. they will all be finally addressed. we have got to make sure that hampton road is not subject to this kind of devastating effect at sea level rise. they also know that hampton roads that we need more, we have opened recently, some real down to the peninsula, it is not enough. we have got to make sure that the rails does not leave off as a cul-de-sac the peninsula on the roads. 66 million-dollar investment in braille, we may soon be able to see that become a reality. hampton roads as well is home to the port of virginia, one of the biggest ports on the whole east coast. but if we don't continue to

upgrade that part, we don't continue to deepen the channels, if we don't make the investments in the island expansions, if we don't stay competitive that fort which is economic engine driver not just of the hampton roads but in many ways the commonwealth. to stay competitive in this legislation will provide $17 billion in record amount of investment in our course and i can promise you, the port of virginia will get his share of those resources read and finally just the plain old issue, of the roads is disconnected from what we call the peninsula in virginia and we have two crossroads which often time can lead to multiple our backups to abridge tunnels. if we make this 110 billion-dollar investments in roads in bridges, we could essentially see that come into reality and make it also make sure is that we can finally

finish the widening of interstate 64 between richmond and talk about this when i was governor, wouldn't it be great if in our lifetimes we can actually finish this project read if we passes bipartisan legislation, before the project, the widening from richmond it will be finished read it's an incredibly important for the people hampton roads in the eastern shore the peninsula, the northern neck to make these investments. let's move up the road to our capitol enrichment, last week, i was looking at the bridge one of the historical edges, over 100 years old. somehow the water damage was taking place and that bridge without remediation could be forced to close. if we don't make the needed

investments. this bipartisan legislation will commit $110 billion for the highways and bridge improvements the mail bridge and a host of the other 700 bridges, and virginia that are decaying, they will get fixed. we need to make that happen. richmond as well as that one of the most aggressive cost transit systems, not only virginia but the whole common within the whole country. we have made huge investments, $40 million in transit in this legislation. some of the richmond bus transits needs will be addressed we also know in enrichment area and across the commonwealth, and the air force, is investing in our airports. it's always needed additional expansion, $25 million to improve our airports across the country in the richmond airport

and other airports and obviously the others, the national they will be approved. as long as the smaller regional airports across the commonwealth, we can make this investment. i come up to our region here in northern virginia. i am very proud of working with tim kaine and senators from maryland it. we make sure that this legislation included a full eight year reauthorization of our metro system. we make sure that we are making record investments in transit so that we can get metro back up operating again on a full schedule and that we can make the needed safety improvements with the metro for a number of years. we also know that we've got to continue to build out additional metro stations and northern virginia. the potomac yard, there will be

extraordinarily important to the innovation center and amazon headquarters. and we gotta make sure as well because metro is moving it zero emission buses, that is good news for our climate, and for our community. the question is when will they be built. this legislation as well makes record investments in a electric and other low carbon and no carbon buses so they can be built here, not in china. record investment in transit, left dramatic improvements. let's get more people out of their cars, into these vre's and needed investments will be made with this legislation. another, while prowling virginia, we gotta make sure that we have another bridge rail bridge across the potomac. in the long bridge project. which i been working on and with

senator kane on this the kind of investment will make it happen. and if anybody lives north virginia knows that traffic is existence and it will be host of improvements that will get if we passes legislation. in route one, from alexandria, through fairfax and the running counties, we know how clogged and can just as it has been we been looking for additional literally for decades on route one. if we legislation, it will get done. and let me move further west in our state read out towards the valley and the southwest, and four years we have been talking about the danger on i 81. and there have been prayers formed for people traveling on i 81 because they are so much truck traffic there that is

frankly impeding the safety of the travel of the public. we been talking about making improvements and expansions to anyone the capacity for 20 years and we been talking about how do we get the trucks off of i 81 and how do we bring in more rail down to the southwest and the south side. we passes legislation, we will see those anyone car door improvements that we have been waiting for. we will see the rails not only go to lynchburg and extending all down. and hopefully down to bristol. this is terribly important to make sure that those communities have formed of transportation opportunities. making sure that we get those trucks off of i 81 i would been talking about this for a long time in the increase rail capacity both freight and passenger we will be able to do that. we also know the south side and southwest, post to covid-19, the high-speed internet connection

is not a nice to have been an absolute necessity. a top priority, somebody spent four years in telecommunications industry that i have, is to make sure that we make those connections in this legislation historically legislation $65 billion for broadband that investment building on governors $700 million investment from virginia, the american rescue plan funds will make sure that every household across the commonwealth has access to high-speed internet conductivity, not five years from now or ten years from now. but in the next couple of years. and finally, across southwest virginia, for that matter for all of virginia, we still have families and are southwest they do not have access to drinking water drinking water on regular basis. sometimes holly water in the back of a pickup truck across to some cistron and they don't have

access to clean drinking water in 2021. they will go to water projects in this legislation or whether they be access clean drinking water are taking out the lead pipe and are too many of our urban communities are this sewer systems that are in some cases 60 and 70 and 80 years old they're wearing out. we can make that investment as well their series of other areas in this legislation are equally important and at the end of the day, i cannot think of a bill that i have worked on that will have more direct effect on the lives of every virginia and over the next five years in terms of how you it's working. two-track

goal. on the bipartisan track, i have worked with my colleagues throughout the process to help produce a an outcome that all parties find acceptable. i have tried to prod negotiators when they needed it and give them space when they have asked it. deadlines were necessary to advance the negotiation. we are here right now during a rare weekend session in order to move the bipartisan bill forward

as quickly as possible. the idea here is to produce an outcome. the idea here is to produce an outcome, a real bipartisan agreement that provides a significant down payment towards the level of infrastructure investment our country needs. the process frr here is simple. once the legislative text of the agreement is finalized -- and i understand it is being finalized imminently, i will offer it as a substitute amendment and then the senate can finally begin voting on additional amendments. i expect we'll be able to consider all the relevant amendments and finish the bill in a matter of days. but we know that this bill is not everything our country needs. that is why after the bipartisan

infrastructure legislation passes this chamber, i will immediately move to the other track -- passing a budget resolution with reconciliation instructions which will allow the senate to make historic investments in american jobs, american families, and efforts to reverse climate change. both tracks are very much needed by the american people, and we must accomplish both. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the idea here the idea here is to produce an outcome. a real bipartisan agreement that provides six significant down payments for the level of infrastructure investments of that our country needs. the process from here, is simple. once the legislative agreement is finalized, and i understand it is being finalized imminently, i will offer it as a substitute amendment as i have always promised and then this and it can begin voting on additional amendments. given the federally bipartisan nature of the bill, i expect we will be able to consider all of the relevance and ankles and finish the bill in a matter of

days but we know this bill is not everything our country needs. that is why after the bipartisan infrastructure legislation passes this chamber, i will immediately move to the other track. passing a budget resolution with reconciliation instructions which will allow the senate to make historic investments in american jobs, american families, and efforts to reverse climate change hard both tracks are very much needed by the american people and we must accomplish both. i yielded the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

quorum call:

>> when a virus jumps from human to animals, this is happened historically. this virus happened to be quite brilliant. it first surfaced in march and actually the united states, it

was first noticed although there is a question about where it actually started. the first wave was quite mild, it was so mild that you could read medical journal articles in which people were saying this looks like influenza, it smells like influenza but it's actually not killing enough people so it is not influenza. i'll give you one statistic to give you a sense of how mild the first wave was. the british and pre- which controlled the coast of europe, had 10313 sailors sick enough to miss duty in a war in the middle of the war, only four of them died. four out of 10000 however, that first wave that the virus.

he wanted to overturn the election and cling to power like a tin-pot dictator.

the police officers he now denounces still bear the wounds from the insurrection he ordered. some other trump supporters have attacked at least one of the police officers who testified as a, quote, crisis actor. this morning's "new york times" has an article by maureen dowd, which i'd like to quote from. she's speaking of laura ingram, one of the political pundits on fox network. it says, laura ingram even gave awards "best exaggerated performance," "before the performance in an action role" to the police who recounted their terrifying experiences with the angry mob. they came across as act terse. that doesn't help anything. we want the police to be just police. even as ingram was describing

these cops who faced danger, aaron smith was frying to get the death of her husband, a veteran washington patrolman, the second officer to take his life after the insurrection, reclassified from suicide to death in the line of duty. after he was hit in the head with a metal pole after the ratify page, he fell into a dark -- rampage, he fell into a dark depression. he pulled his car off the parkway and killed himself with a service weapon. four house republicans representing the dregs of congress, in maureen dowd's word, turned up in a washington jail to shine a light on the plight of success suspects. one of them, goa czar, hailed

them as political prisoners. since when do republicans care more about criminals in jail than the cops who put them there? since when do they coddle domestic terrorists? since donald trump. there was a point decades ago where in desperation to stop the ravings of the senator from wisconsin, a man named joseph welch said to the senator, have you no shame? at long last, have you no shame? that's what john joseph welch famously asked senator joseph mccarthy when mccarthy tried to turn his vicious smear campaign against members of the united states army, after his lies had already broken the lives of so many americans. now an angry and emitterred ex-president is turning his vicious smear tactics against a different group of democracy's defenders. it's pointless to ask if the former president feels shame or

decency or empathy. we learned long ago that he is incapable of such feelings. so i ask my republican colleagues, what do you say? at long last, will you tell the former president, enough, no more, you've gone too far, this must stop? you were all here on january 6, as i was. you know those capitol police and metropolitan police risked their lives to defend you and me. will you now defend them when they're being smeared so scandalously? we're here on a sunday working to pass an historic bipartisan plan to build the backbone of a strong 21st century economy that benefits all americans. can't we also have the bipartisan backbone to defend the men and women who defended the capitol on january 6? a few minutes ago i walked into the building. they were there. you know they're going to be

there, to protect you. the men and women of the capitol police. their job is more dangerous because of january 6. we salute them for their bravery. and those who have questioned that bravery have really gone too far. on another topic, the most frustrating aspect of america's covid response isn't that we're being asked to wear masks again -- i have my mask here -- in covid hot spots. the mod maddening part of this pandemic is that americans could have put this in our rear view mirror long ago. we could have saved thousands of lives. over 600,000 americans dead from covid-19. we could have prevented a great deal of the economic pain this pandemic has inflicted on america's families and businesses. we're here now battling a new surge and a more dangerous

strain. coronavirus, in large part because the people with big megaphones chose cynically and cowardly and cruelly to spread doubt and denial about this virus and the vaccines that prevent it. their lies cost lives. fortunately, this past week seems to mark a turning point for america. leaders in both the public and private sector are stepping up for the common good and requiring their workers to get vaccinated and to get tested regularly to show they're not sick sand a danger to others. if you want the job, get the jab. it's time. president biden also announced that all federal workers must get vaccinated or tested. i commend his decision. that's leadership, and it will save lives. and to some who come to the floor of the senate and other places to say the government should operate more like a business, take note. some of america's most

innovative employers -- google, netflix, disney -- have also announced that their workers will have to be vaccinated, and there will be more. recently, madam president, several. our republican colleagues took the floor of the senate and even invited over their fan club from the house. they lined up right behind the speakers over on the republican side of the aisle, and they were very strong in their feelings that the speaker of the house should not require members to wear a mask. well, there is a reason for it, and the suggestion that the c.d.c. has flip-flopped or dr. fauci has flip-flopped belies the reality that the virus has flip-flopped. we're now dealing with something known as a delta variant. there is an urgent message for all americans who have not been vaccinated. while you have been avoiding a vaccination or waiting for just

the right moment, the enemy, the covid-19 virus, has not been idle. the delta variant has arrived in a big and deadly way. here's what dr. rochelle walensky said. the delta variant is more aggressive, more transferable than previously circulating strains. it is one of the most infectious reserve praytory -- respiratory versions we've known of, in my 20-year career. in case you dismissed dr. walensky as some socialist and you prefer tucker carlson or laura ingram on fox, i hope you will not ignore the grim reality in the numbers. over 90% who are sick or die from the variant are unvaccinated.

people inequity ifed by coronavirus delta variant may carry 1,000 times -- 1,000 times -- as much virus as those infected with the original coronavirus. those up effected were more than twice as likely to be hospitalized than that's infected with the original virus. vaccines are still effective against the delta variant. but don't believe if you are unvaccinated that you are safe around vaccinated people. new data shows that fully vaccinated people can spread the delta variant as readily as unvaccinated people. it gets down to the very basics. until america decides to make vaccination part of our survival, we will continue -- sadly -- to witness infections, hospitalizations, and deaths and, god forbid, more variants.

leaders in both public and private sector are stepping up. we should, too. people should be tested regularly, if they insist on not being vaccinate add to show that they're not sick and not a danger to others. the covid vaccines are safe, free, readily available and almost miraculously effective, and they are way -- and they are the way out this pandemic. one more point about covid protection. many on the right are spinning mad and filled with feigned confusion about the c.d.c.'s guidance urging people to wear masks indoors again, even if you're vaccinated. they say how can we trust an agency that keeps changing its rules? because the virus is changing, and the guidance is changing accordingly. the virus has mutate and gained strength because tens of millions of americans have refused to wear maximum or get vaccinated. deliberate distortion and

outraged speech aren't going to stop the virus. if you want to take off the mask for good -- and i sure do -- if you want your kids to go to school without being burdened by masks -- and i sure do -- we need to tell truth. listen to the experts, get the vaccine. getting this virus behind us is good. -- us for good is the only way we can open america's economy. in the longer term, the only way to remain the world's preeminent economy is to invest in the fundamentals of a strong, sustainable growth and shared prosperity. it's good that the senate is debating this plan. i hope that it passes this week as soon as possible, as well as our budget resolution, but in the meantime, we cannot ignore that the nation is still in the throes of a pandemic. madam president, i yield the floor, suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

>> unanimous consent the quorum be dispensed with. >> without objection. >> from the very beginning, my stated goal for the july-august work period and despite some bumps in the road, always expected on two bills as a large and comprehensive as these, we remain firmly on track to achieve our two-track goal.

on the bipartisan track, i have worked with my colleagues throughout the process to help produce an outcome that. >> a real bipartisan agreement that provides a significant down payment towards the level of infrastructure investment our country needs. the process from here is simple. once the legislative text of the agreement is finalized -- and i understand it is being finalized imminently -- i will offer it as a substitute amendment as promised. and then the senate can finally begin voting on additional amendments. given the thoroughly bipartisan

nature of the bill, i expect we'll be able to consider all the relevant amendments and finish the bill in a matter of days. but we mow that this bill -- we know that this bill is not everything our country needs. that is why after the bipartisan infrastructure legislation passes this chamber i will immediately move to the other track, passing a budget resolution with reconciliation instructions which will allow the senate to make historic investments in more than jobs -- in american jobs, american families and efforts to reverse climate change. both tracks are very much needed by the american people, and we must accomplish both. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. >> the clerk will call --

jim bear arely at the tulane schoolf public medicine and more importantly, the author of the great influenza, he's here to discuss the current covid-19 pandemic and how it compares to seasonal and pandemic viruses seen in the last few years. john, good morning. >> guest: good morning. >> host: so first, take us through your book, "the great influenza: the story of the deadliest pandemic in history." why was this flu pandemic so deadly? >> guest: well, chiefly because the virus was so virulent, you know? a pandemic occurs when a new virus jumps from animals to

humans which has happened numerous times historically. this virus in 1918 happened to be quite, quite virulent. it first surfaced in march and, actually, in the united states it was first noticed although there's some question about where it actually started, the first wave was quite mild. it was so so mild that you could read medical journal articles in which people were saying this looks like influenza, it smells like influenza, but it's actually not killing enough people, so it's not influenza. that was -- i'll give you one statistic to give you a sense of how mild that first wave was. the british grand fleet which patrolled the coast of europe had 10,313 sailors sick enough

to miss tooth in the middle of a -- miss duty in the middle of a war, but only 4 of them died, 4 out of 10,000. however, that first wave that the virus was also not particularly transmissable, it was certainly contagious, and it did get in many places around the world, but it wasn't very explosive. had a tendency to peter out, that's a direct quote from a scientist back then who wrote a comrades' review. the virus adapted to humans, became better and better at transmitting itself and a variant emerged that a caused an explosive second wave that killed tens of millions of people in an incredibly short period of time. you know, the best numbers i think in terms of decimals is

50-100 million people. with we didn't have great data back then. the world was a lot smaller back then, so that 50-100 million in 1918 is equal to about 225 million to 450 million people today. so just manage that impact today. as i said a minute ago, it killed people in an incredibly short period of time. worldwide probably two-thirds of the deaths occurred in about 14 or 15 weeks. and in any particular community, it moved faster than that. it would run through a community in 6-10 weeks. and, again, two-thirds of the deaths over a two-year period would occur in those few weeks. it continued to mutate and

another variant emerged, caused a third wave in the spring of march 1919. that was pretty lethal but less lethal than the second wave. and after that, partly because the virus continued to mutate, partly because people's immune systems became used to it and were better able to respond, it became seasonal influenza and continued to circulate until 1957 when another pandemic, virus came along. the influenza that we're all familiar with today does, it is partly the 1918 virus. so the virulence of that virus really was extraordinary. it could kill people in less than 12 hours. you know, that was unusual, but

it happened. most of the people though actually died probably there from a secondary bacterial infection, from bacterial knew end moan ya. not clear -- pneumonia. it's not clear how many died from a secondary infection, how many died initially from the virus. there are a considerable number of parallels between 918 and -- 1918 and covid. for one thing, 1918 infected and affected virtually every organ in the body. there was a tremendous number of cardiovascular complications, stroke and so forth, heart problems. another was that the neurological problems were very, very common as one very good observer noted, second only to pulmonary. and, again, that's very similar

to what's happening today. one of the biggest differences, one i already are mentioned, that was duration. as violent as the attack was in 1918, it was over in an incredibly short period of time. that, obviously, is very, very different today. so even though 1918 was much more intense and much more tragic, in some ways the stress on people was less because when it was over, it was over in a much shorter period. another very big difference is the target demographic who died. probably two-thirds of the dead in 1918 were age 18-45 or 50. so it was young people. and infants, children under 10, particularly children under the age of 5, it was a very, very

lethal -- >> host: now, john, let me ask, let me bring these statistics to our audience here. so for the 1918 flu pandemic, there were more than 500 million people infected with the flu which at that time was about one-third of the world's population. there were 50 million deaths worldwide, and there were 675,000 deaths in the united states. right now with covid, according to the johns hopkins university covid tracker, there have been 197 million cases global, worldwide of covid, more than 4 million deaths and, of course, we've had more than 600,000 deaths in the united states from covid. so those numbers are not exactly the same, but we're still talking in the hundreds of

millions of infections worldwide with covid. when we talk about the flu ab pandemic, one of the things that struck me that you just said was that the seasonal flu that we're dealing with still today is connected to that same flu pandemic that happened more than a hundred years ago with the, that flu pandemic. did i hear you say that correctly? >> guest: yeah, that's correct. some of the genetic information, yes. >> host: so does that signal that the covid-19 virus we're dealing with now could still be around in some shape, form or fashion a hundred years from now? >> guest: yeah, i think, you know, personally i think that this virus is never going away. that doesn't mean that it's always going to be as dangerous as it is now. there was -- in 1889 there was what everybody thought was an influenza pandemic, it was called the russian flu.

but there's actually a couple of months ago some scientists pecklatedded that that was -- speculated that that was actually not an influenza, that was caused by a coronavirus named c-43 which today causes the common cold. it's impossible to say whether or not they're correct, but it's it's an interesting hypothesis that they advanced. you know, their evidence wasn't compelling, but it's interesting. we don't really know. one of the main things that was pretty good evidence they presented was that this common cold virus entered the human population at approximately the same time as the 1889 pandemic. that's the main reason that they advanced the argument it was

actually a coronavirus pandemic, not enflew went sa. but i would -- influenza. but i would expect this virus to be around essentially forever, but again, it doesn't mean it's going to be dangerous forever. i think it's most likely that we will, our immune systems and vaccines are going to be able to handle it eventually. and and it won't be nearly as dangerous. >> host: let me remind our viewers that they can take part in this conversation. we're going to open up regional lines. that means that if you are in the eastern or central time zones, your number's going to be 202-748-8000. if you are in the mountain or pacific time zone, your number's going to be 202-748-8001. keep in mind you can always text us at 202-748-8003, and we're always reading on social media on twitter twitter c-span wj ann facebook at facebook.com/c-span.

so, john, can you explain to us how the 1918 pandemic was actually ended? what did we do to stop it in the united states? was it vaccines? was it masks? was it social distancing? how did it end? >> guest: well, it ended naturally. you know, our science was not advanced enough to develop a vaccine for it. at the time we didn't even know exactly what a virus was. scientists knew there were these extremely small organisms that ca cause disease. in fact, they isolated polio and even developed the vaccine against polio that was 100% effective in monkeys as early as 1910. but hay couldn't grow it -- but they couldn't grow it. what -- sorry, lost my train of

thought for a second there. you know, there was a trend of scientific research that came out on the 1918 pandemic including the definition of a virus, but that didn't come about until, didn't figure it out until 1925. there were two lessons that came out of the pandemic in terms of controlling it. number one, tell the truth. that's nor mousily -- enormously important in terms of controlling it. and, number two, that what was referred to as non-pharmaceutical interventions, what do you do when you don't have any drugs, that those things could have some impact. and that would be the social distancing and closing down when necessary and things like that. but those two lessons are intertwined, because you're not going to get people to cooperate in the non-pharmaceutical

interventions unless they believe what you're telling them. and, obviously, we've been divided on partisan lines in this pandemic. so there's very little trust. in terms of how it actually ended, you know, pretty much naturally. as i said earlier, it's likely -- i think, anyway -- that the virus continued to mutate, and it mutated in a direction becoming more mild than that second wave. at the same time, people's immune systems, they had seen the virus once, they'd seen the virus twice, as it came around again and againing they were much better able to handle it without the deadly reper cutses. you know -- repercussions. you know, season one influenza does kill people, and it did continue to kill people but not in anything like the numbers during the pandemic.

>> host: we have a question for you from one of our social media followers about the differences between the pandemic then and the pandemic now. the question is, do you think americans took the pandemic more seriously back then because it killed so many children early on? >> guest: well, they took it much more seriously back then because it killed everybody. you know, people were lied to in 1918. there was fake news. because the government said this is nothing to worry about. they actually said this is ordinary influenza by another name. it was called spanish flu. but those lies didn't have any impact because people could see that their neighbor, you know, their spouse getting deathly sick, dying sometimes from horrific symptoms. i mean, scary symptoms. you could bleed not only from

your nose or mouth, but you could actually bleed from your eyes and ears. that's a pretty scary symptom. people were turning so dark blue from lack of oxygen, one doctor wrote that he couldn't distinguish african-american soldiers from white soldiers. so that spreading rumors of the black death. when you have things like that happen, you take it very, very seriously. there was a tremendous amount of fear out there in 1918. much more than today. >> host: here's another question from one of our social media followers because earlier on in the pandemic we heard a lot of people say that this covid-19 is nothing but the flu all over again. this is just a flu. is so one of our social media followers wants to know what is the difference between influenza and the current coronaviruses? >> guest: well, i mean, they're

different viruses. they, obviously, cause similar symptoms, and they're spread pretty much the same way. you know, i don't know how else to put it than that. you know, influenza can, as i said earlier, in 1918 that virus affected every organ in the body as covid does. that's pretty unusual for a seasonal enflew went sa. influenza. i think the fact that all these different organs are affected is kind of evidence that what is actually doing the damage is not necessarily the virus infecting those organs, but the immune system with the body trying to fight back the disease is throwing every weapon it has at the virus. and this affects other organs in the body. you know, that was similar

between the two pandemics, but that doesn't happen normally with influenza. you know, normally seasonal influenza the virus combines two receptors in your nose and mouth and the upper respiratory track -- also in the eyes also -- but it normally does not bind to cells deep in your lungs. so you can get, you know, the headaches, you get fever and so forth and so on, but you don't normally get pneumonia from, viral pneumonia from influenza. you could do that, did do that in 1918. that was -- covid, sars-cov-2 passes'dly to one -- very easily from one person to another, but

it has ability to to get deep into the cells, and if that happens, you're having viral pneumonia, and that's not a good place to be. >> host: a lot of the vaccine deniers are saying, well, looked at how few flu cases we had over the last year with. that means that these, that these things must have been same thing, that they're just classifying covid cases, they're classifying flu cases as covid are cases. i'm sure you've heard that too. what do you say to those people? >> guest: well, the reason we had so little influenza last year was because the two diseases are spread almost exactly the same way. so all that effort to protect ourselves from covid actually stopped not just influenza, but pretty much every respiratory disease. you know, people are keeping distances, if they're, you know, staying home, if they're, you know, not going to bars,

concerts and so forth, there's much less opportunity for any respiratory virus to spread. so that's why there was so little influenza last year. >> host: let's go to our phone lines, and let's start with earl who's calling from orlando, florida, on the republican line. earl, good morning. >> caller: good morning. i'm a gulf war era vet back from 1990. we got a blob you lin are vaccine against the crazy man in the desert in iraq. 750,000 of us didn't have a choice. about getting that vaccine. and i did get this covid vaccine. you know, there's a lot of us who have this gulf war illness thing that we think came from the vaccine, but the military kind of denies it. and i, as not a vaccine deny or, but as a experienced person, i really think my life, my quality

of life over the last 35 years is extremely affected by the vaccine. i see the personal correlation, i have many friends who have had those same type of symptoms, and i don't hold it against the deniers of the vaccine because if i had it to do all over again, i would have refused the mandatory vaccine that the military was giving us just simply because i didn't want it. i wouldn't hold it against anybody. i think a quality of life issue is a personal decision. but i also think there's things they don't tell people. they don't tell us about the data, they don't tell us about all the things that can happen to your quality of life later in life. thanks, that's my comment. i word wondered if mr. barry could comment on those issues. >> guest: well, first, i appreciate what you did for the country and for the world back

then. second, you know, i don't know anything specifically about that vaccine. obviously, there was -- that saddam hussein had biological weapons and chemical weapons, so that would have been an effort to protect our soldiers against those weapons. again, i don't know specifically about the vaccine, about that vaccine. you know, the defense department was not very helpful initially after vietnam, agent orange and so forth. it was quite difficult for a lot of veterans who suffered from that to get help. so that history was not so great. in terms of this vaccine, however, you know, this vaccine has been extremely well tested. right now worldwide several

billion, billion people who have received the vaccine. the side effects, you know, pretty clearly are, you know, very minor and very temporary. you know, i've heard numbers of how many people have been killed by the vaccine, they're in the, you know, the highest number i ever heard from anybody was 31,000, but, you know, there's no data to support that. and more importantly, there have been at least 4 million people who have died from this. so, and there are several billion people, you know, shots that have gone into people's arms. if you figure just look at the math, even if that totally unsupported, false figure is correct about the number of people who died from the

vaccine, again, it's false, it's not correct, it's still 200 to 1 in terms of how many have died from the disease. so again, a false figure on the death toll from the vaccine, not true. even if you accept that, it's till 200 to 1 as to the number of people who have died from the disease. so it, you know, it just doesn't make sense to me in terms of not getting the vaccine to protect yourself and to protect other people. >> host: now, john, this caller and you have just been talking about the military. and the current coronavirus. but how did the military deal with the 1918 flu pandemic? did they -- what did they do? >> guest: well, again, you know, we didn't -- actually, some of the best science in the world

was being done by the military then because many, probably even most of the very best doctors in the country were in the army at the time. even the scientists. for example, the dean of the johns hopkins medical school who's probably the single most important figure in the entire history of american medicine, he became a colonel. dean of the university of michigan medical school, another major figure, he became a colonel. what is now rockefeller university which has the highest concentration of nobel laureates probably of any institution in the world, that existed -- it was then called the rockefeller institute of medical research. the entire institute was incorporated into the military. all the scientists became officers except for one guy who's canadian who they made him a corp. wallal.

he -- corporal. his name is oswald avery. he is one that discovered the genetic code partly as a result of his research on the 1918 pandemic. so they took this very seriously. even before the pandemic they were very concerned about rest respiratory disease, some kind of, you know, you've got a barracks, you've got, you know, thousands of soldiers in military camps, so they were very worried about spread of disease. and they actually ran experiments in the winter of 1917 before pandemic started and discovered that if you put a mask on somebody who is already sick, then you protect the people around that person. you know, they proved it scientifically. they could tell you how far people's sputum traveled when they cough and so forth and is so on. these were very good experiments.

and up until world war i, pretty much in every war that had ever been fought more soldiers divided of disease than in combat. and the army surgeon general who was another great leader, he really solved the problem of yellow fever and allowed the panama canal to be built. anyway, you know, he was determined that in this war it would be the first one that more people died in combat. now, it turned out not to have been the case because the pandemic was special. but, for example, on september 26th the disease had already surfaced in the united states. they canceled the draft. they didn't want any more people coming into the training camps because they already felt that they were overcrowded and wouldn't be able to handle it.

pretty much the vast majority of the camps instituted quarantine and social distancing measures and things like that. in fact, it's kind of interesting, the study of that after the pandemic. you know, it demonstrated that, you know, all these measures were in place, and they weren't strictly enforced in many camps. and they didn't do any good whatsoever in the camps that did not strictly enforce those, you know, the same social distancing and quarantine and isolation and so forth that with we went through. but they did work pretty well when they were strictly enforced. and, you know, we've seen the same kinds of results around the world and in the united states this time around. let's talk to tony who's calling from alabama. tony, good morning.

>> caller: good morning. yes. i was wondering on this so-called vaccine, dr. eden, the head of pfizer's research and malone, dr. malone, who created the mrna vaccine, they both say stop it right now, it's not good for humans. they have not been allowed on any television stations, you can only see them on the internet. they've been banned, most of their stuff, on the internet. science is science when it's proven by peers. the only peers doing the science here and looking at these studies are the ones in the government or the colleges which are paid by the government. why should anybody take this thing when they say it's a genocide on the people of -- because these prions that are in there are just multiplying,, and they're clogging up every major artery there is. but again i keep hearing how great this thing is, all from government people that change their mind every single day. us healthy people that have already had it, why would we take this thing when there are,

like the caller earlier said, hundreds and hundreds of thousands dead, i mean, injured badly, dead people losing their babies. this is crazy. i mean, this is insane is. when are you people going to start having some ethics and start telling the people of the united states what the9 hell is going on? >> host: go ahead and respond there, john. >> guest: well, i don't think -- the gentleman is not lying because he believes what he's saying. unfortunately because not one word he said is true. you know, it's that simple. you know, science -- you know, science changes, you know? information changes. when information, when the data changes, you change your position. you know, i know it seems that things have, you know, gone back and forth, cdc and so forth and so on, and they have. because the information that they're basing their judgment ons has changed.

you know, the idea that the head of pfizer a says don't take the vaccine, that's nonsense. is he, you know, why does someone believe that they get from the internet? i mean, it's just beyond me when, you know, i mean, go to your own doctor. find somebody, who knows what they're talking about whom you trust. you know, that's, you know, i just can't understand why somebody would believe nonsense in some video or piece of social media that they read on the internet and not believe people who spend their entire lives trying to save lives. you know, that's what what people in the cdc do. they're there, you know, they're all physicians or in some cases

ph.d.s. they're doing it to save lives. that's what the people at the national institutes of health are are doing. practically every scientist at the nih could make a lot more money in private industry. they're there because they want to do, they want to help humanity. you know, world health organization, what is in it for the world health organization? you know, every country in the world practically, you know, is desperate for the vaccine, and here we're in a situation where we have people who, you know, again, the gentleman who just called, i'm sure he believes what he's saying and he thinks he's trying to help people. but what kind of source of information are you relying on? if you have cancer and you go to your doctor, are you going to do what that do advises you, are you going to take some nonsensical junk that comes off the internet? i would say that the

overwhelming majority of viewers are going to do what their doctor tells them and pay very little attention to the internet. yet here we have a situation where we're -- far too many people are paying attention to nonsensical claims and taking them seriously. i just don't get it. go to your own doctor. go to somebody who actually knows what he or she is talking about and whom you trust. and, you know, it should be your own doctor. >> host: well, john, is here's -- along these lines, here's a question from one of our social media followers. what was the american political response to the is 1918 pandemi? was it a partisan affair like the present? if not, perhaps we are dumber than our ancestors. is partisanship making us stupider in our ability to handle pandemics?

>> guest: i would say yes, actually. [laughter] you know, unfortunately. as i said at beginning, in 1918 the government lied. they said there was nothing to see. you know, major national public health people were saying this is ordinary influenza with another name. but they did it not for partisan reasons. they did it because they were afraid that telling the truth would hurt the war effort, and they had the entire country was focused on winning the war. so at least they did it not to advance their own personal agenda. there was no partisan divide whatsoever. there was some resistance to some of the orders many some

cities. in some cities. but that resistance came from people like saloon owners, for example, if you were closing the sawing loon. it wasn't spread among the general population. you know, some of the cities like new york city was run by tammany. tammy had just come back into power, probably the most corrupt political institution that we've ever seen in american to politics. so they replaced the heads of the department, the city's municipal health department's probably the best one in the world at the time, with a guy who wasn't even a doctor. and if this was before the pandemic. the pandemic comes along, and he wouldn't even close the saloons because the saloon owners were the, you know, huge backers of the tammany hall regime. so you had that kind of politics. but almost every city closed

schools and closed, you know, a saloons, theaters and so forth and so on. incidentally, that's one of the big differences between influenza and covid-19, is it's the vulnerability of kids. and it makes a -- it made a lot of sense to close schools in influenza pandemic because, number one, they're super-spreaders, and number two, they are very vulnerable to the disease. either of those things are true in can covid, but that's why initially a lot of places closed schools, because they didn't know that kids weren't super-spreaders. they didn't know initially how vulnerable they might or might not have been. >> host: let's go back to our phone lines, and let's talk to jerry who's calling from new smyrna beach, florida. jerry, good morning. >> caller: good morning.

thanks for taking my callment actually -- my call. actually, my mom's family lived through the epidemic back in 1918, and they were living in new york city at the time. i remember asking her about this when she was still alive, and she said her father came down with it and a sibling. of course, had a big family like most people might have back then. but nobody else was affected in their family at all. so, and fortunately, my grandfather and her sibling came through that pandemic, luckily, you know? my grandmother -- i don't think they believed in doctors at the time. so does this imply a kind of immunity that may have existed back then? i mean, had there been any research tone on that type of, in that field, you know, like who got it, who didn't, that kind of thing?

>> guest: yeah. not everyone is going to get every disease. covid is much more, much more -- particularly the delta variant -- much more contagious than influenza. so even if you did nothing at all with influenza, probably around a third of the population would get infected. at least get symptomatic. there is also people get infected withen influenza who don't show any symptoms. fewer than is the case with covid, but it does happen. and there is also some asymptomatic spread, some disease spread by people who don't show any symptoms, but not nearly as much as with covid. you know, some of it's just the hawk of the draw -- the luck of the draw. some people, you know, may just be genetic. it's hard to say is.

you know, some diseases aren't always that easy to get. you know, as scary as ebola is, for example, it's not that easy to transmit ebola. is, you know, sars, the first sars is, which had a 10% case mortality, many multiples of what we're going through, that's not that easy to transmit. mers, which is another coronavirus, that emerged a little over ten years ago, just about ten years ago and had a 35% case mortality rate. that disease is not that easy to transmit. and, you know, both the original sars and mers, you know, sars was contained. you know, mers doesn't seem to be a real threat. so, again, part of it is how communicable, how contagious the virus is, part of it is luck of

the draw, you know, where where you go, when, so forth and so on so that's a long answer that really isn't an answer probably. >> host: well, you just brought up past pandemics that we've faced in the country, and i want you to address some of these pandemics. we've been talking about the 1918 pandemic which was the h1n1 virus. talk about 1957, the h2n2 and 1968, the h3n2. tell us about those pandemics. how did we -- what were they, first of all, and how did we come out of it? >> guest: well, again, a different influenza virus entered the human population both 1957 and 1968 probably started in china. you know, the '57 virus was

pretty nasty. nothing whatsoever like 1918 and nothing like covid. there was a vaccine developed, but it -- not early enough really to have much impact on disease. so it was more severe than ordinary seasonal influenza. there were not very many measures taken to control it. in fact, there were meetings of the, i guess, associate of state ander the territorial public health directors x they decided against actually taking any extreme action. there were, no doubt, schools closed in places that were hard hit but not really anything more than that. interestingly as with the 1918

virus, as with 1889 as well, the first year in the 1889 pandemic which lasted about three years was the mildest. and in britain where we have good numbers, the second year killed almost exactly twice the number as died in the first year. to this would be after you've already had some exposure and natural immunity. so you had a variant that became more virulent. and in many countries, the third year was actually the deadliest in that pandemic. again, the variant kept mutating and would get better and better at infecting people, and it killed more as it went on. after that people's immune systems adjusted and the virus changed again, and it konked out. in is the 57 -- in 1957 the peak

to mortality, monthly mortality, the worst month during the pandemic actually occurred in 1960. so that was after a couple of years of the virus having circulated. so you, again, would have had a natural immunity. and also after a vaccine was already developed and administered. so as with 1889, as with 1918, 1957, cheerily you had a variant -- clearly, you had a variant emerging that got increasingly nasty in some cases. and 1968 is a little bit more complicated. 1968 in the united states, most of the deaths occurred in that first year. but in europe most deaths occurred in the second year. again, after there's already exposure and some natural immunity developed and, again, after a vaccine was already

being distributed. so the most likely explanation for that is that there was a variant that, or you know, spread through europe but for whatever reason didn't spread in the united states. even in 2009 which was sort of the pandemic that didn't happen, actually fewer people were killed by that swine flu virus than normally is the case in a seasonal influential or here. but that is a very interesting pandemic. it was almost two entirely different diseases. the overwhelming majority of people had a really mild case. but for those people who got seriously ill, it was really very much like the 1918 virus. but once again, just like in '68, '57, 1918, 1889, the virus, you know, actually continued to adapt to people and became if

more virulent as time went on before it calmed back down. now, that's only really been noticed in the scientific community. it's a relative statement, and that pandemic never do -- well, i guess it does in the united states, about 1,000 and seasonal influenza has killed as many as 61,000. so in retrospect, that sort of an event that didn't happen. >> host: let's see if we can get some more callers in. let's start from anne who's calling from memphis, tennessee. anne, good morning. >> caller: hi. i just want to thank mr. barry for his book. i read it, it was fascinating. and the thing that i took away from the from it the most was the fact that during that research -- i think it was, was it through johns hopkins? i believe it was.

anyway, that they came up with other, cures for other diseases, i believe, like the yellow fever. and i think malaria or something. and i found that just fascinating because, i mean, i'm double vaccinated and so is a all of my family including the kids. and since i've had the vaccination, i haven't gotten the usual summer cold and other things that this time of year i usually get. i also, back to what we were talking about before, i'm also a federal employee. and they had taken the mask restrictions off the building, and now they've put it back, and they're talking -- everybody's been working from home, but they're talking about us all going back into the building. and i'm very uncomfortable with that because i think that

sitting e enclosed in a room with a bunch of people, you know, a large room with no windows with a whole bunch of people that have decided they don't want to get vaccinated, i don't really think it's fair to the rest of us that have taken precautions that now we'll have to sit there for up to 8 hours or more with a mask on because of irresponsibility. >> host: go ahead and respond there, john. >> guest: okay. first, specifically yellow fever and ma a lair ya, they -- malaria,ing they weren't solvedded. but your main point -- and thanks if or your comment on the book -- your main point about other benefits, you know, is absolutely correct. there's a saying about basic science you may have heard that shoot an arrow into the area -- into the air and wherever it lands, you paint the target. so when they start doing this research on disease, they learn an awful lot about many, many

things. you know, i mentioned the two most important things already. first, they figured out what a virus was. and eventually, how to grow it. and, you know, the second one is probably even more important and helped shape all our lives, and that was the discovery of the genetic code which was an outgrowth a although the discovery didn't come for 25 years, but it was an outgrowth of research on the influence of pandemic by oswald avery who i mentioned earlier. so, you know, i'm certain that we are going to get -- there is a tremendous amount of resources that have been pouring into research and will continue to pour into medical research since the pandemic started, and i am absolutely certain we are going to get tremendous benefits out

of that. a lot of it will not be directly el ared -- relatedded to covid, but the benefits will be very, very real. >> host: now, john, in any of these previous pandemic did the government mandate vaccines? because we know going all the way back to 1905 and the jay sobson v -- jacobson v. massachusetts case, the supreme court ruled that the police power of the state absolutely included reasonable regulation to protect public health and safety. so they ruled back in 1905 before the 1918 pandemic that states could mandate, governments could mandate vaccines. if any of the pandemics we talked about, did the government mandate that people get vaccinated in. >> guest: no. but in most cases they didn't have is a vaccine. i guess in all the cases they didn't have a vaccine that was

developedden soon enough to be useful. and probably the closest to a vaccine mandate, and it was not a mandate, was in 1976 when they had a so-called swine flu incident. it, you know, killed a soldier in fort dix, put some more in the hospital, and people in the scientific community were concerned this was a new virus. it had jumped species, and they were afraid that it would spread worldwide. and gerald ford was convinced, you know, multiple lawyer a yachts sat down in the oval office to launch this vaccine effort. that was correct. they had to begin the preparation. but he never -- there should have been an offramp because that disease never spread beyond

fort dix. and meantime, millions of americans got vaccinated against a threat that didn't really exist. and there were side effects to that vaccine. and since the disease that they were being protected against didn't happen, the only bad outcomes were from that vaccine. and this have been other occasions -- there have been other occasions where where a vaccine has caused problems. best known was -- but that is not the case this time around. and those thing, those side effects surfaced quite, quite quickly and were identified pretty quickly. you know, both in the polio incident and in 1976. and we've now gone much longer than that with this vaccine. instead of giving, having to give millions of doses worldwide, there are, you know,

several, you know, well over a billion, roughly two billion doses of vaccine with minimal side effects against a disease that has killed millions. again, it makes no sense to me. as far as one other comment the caller just made about being -- well, let me read you something that the french president, macron, said last week which, if i can find it. actually, i thought it was going to be right here for me. i had it ready but not -- i won't take time to look for it. it disappears from my phone -- >> host: if you can find it, we'll come back to it. let's go to allan who's calling from hawaii. allan, good morning. >> caller: yes, good morning, good morning. thank you for taking my call. i think i may have spoken with professor barry once before.

i will mention a couple names. he probably knows these people, monica gandhi is the university of california-san francisco, michael mena who's an epidemiologist at harvard, professor gandhi had brought up an issue, she -- one of her very important discussions has been surrounding the b-cell durability where the, from a nature magazine article from 2008 think had, i think it was 32 people they were able to sterile isolate the b-cells and show -- from the 1918 epidemic. and she was even able, they were able to show all the reactivity with more modern versions of the virus. and that was kind of interesting and made me think of you right away. and, of course, now we're seeing a lot of her work is coming down the pike right now as far as defending the pfizer vaccine

against immediate requirements for boosters even though, of course, with the delta variant there will probably be thiess with immuno-suppressed subsidies sometimes soon, what israel's doing now. with dr. america ena, i think that one thing that hasn't been discussed very well and it's been kind of off the radar screen, but dr. eric to poll at scripps has brought up the issues that we really need to get back to rapid testing as a major instrument which has been, even though the biden administration has set aside massive amounts of money for rapid tests including the paper and things, that hasn't, it hasn't been converted. the only, the cheapest test out there right now, the abbott test, it's till not really cost effective. the government would do what trump did which is to buy 150 million. but really they need to buy

billions of tests, give them to everyone so they can test our way out of this until everyone is able to get vaccinated. >> host: john, would rapid testing help with this pandemic? >> guest: yeah, i think it would. before it was clear that the vaccine would be available, you know, that was one of the offramps. if you could have a cheap rapid test, you know, by cheap they were talking about $2 and $5 a test, you know, people thought you could take it almost daily, they could give it before you walked into the office, you could have a result in a few minutes and so forth and so on, and it would be very helpful in slowing spread of the disease. and and that would probably be true. in terms of distribution, usage

and so forth, it'd be pretty complicated, but it should be a tool. i think the effectiveness of the vaccine, you know, took people's attention away from this secondary means of controlling spread if which is, of course, more indirect than a vaccine. but, yeah, i i think it'd be helpful, and i think the, you know, investment should be made in that. >> host: let's see if we can get a quick question and a quick answer. let's start with scott who's calling from roseville, california. scott, good morning. >> caller: hi, doctor can. thank you for your time and your wisdom and all the years -- [inaudible] anyway, i want to get to this -- technology. i saw a wonderful show on genetic manipulation for dna auditing, but you've frequently throughout the show mentioned

how previous accounts to vaccinated have had -- [inaudible] so we didn't have to worry and we're -- [inaudible] but there are others that kind of fell along the wayside. i'm curious about our, just for lack of uses, taking up annual flu shots which lots of us do. and is that something that could -- our immune system enough to allow a pandemic to break out? thank you, sir. entering no. you know -- >> guest: no. the more exposed you are to different pathogens, the stronger your immune system's going to be. it doesn't get weaker, it gets stronger. you know, it, it's what -- just, you know, a vaccine is a signal so that your immune system can recognize a signal and mount a defense that's specific to that

attack. that's really all it is, is a signal. if you never get infected, then your. is never going to respond. if you do get infected, it's already seen that signal, and it is much faster and more specific in mounting a response. and the specificity is important. you know, a lot of the deaths from covid are from what is called the -- storm. and that's when your immune system, messengers that get your immune system going, and some of them are toxic. so it's when your immune system has this massive response instead of a narrow, specific response. and that acid response can kill you. when the 'em moon system knows exactly what -- immune system knows exactly what it's targeting and just mounts the parts of the immune system that

work directly against that specific attack, then your whole body is much safer. and you're much more effective in fighting off disease. >> host: well, we'd like to thank john m. barry who's a fished scholar at tulane university of public health and the author of "the great influential: the story of the they wouldlyiest pandemic in history. -- deadliest pandemic in history." we'd like to thank him for being here today. john, thank you so much for being with us this morning. >> guest: thank you very much, really. love c-span going back 40 years, more than 40 years. >> host: well, thank you.

>> in a little bit of a holding power here waiting for word that text of the senate infrastructure bill has been finished. members of the bipartisan group of senators who negotiated an agreement on the legislation said the document is almost ready, and they expect final passage by the end of the week.

as we wait for more on the senate floor, here's senate majority leader chuck schumer on the ajean the for the chamber -- agenda for the chamber before the august recess. >> mr. president -- >> majority leader. >> are we in a quorum? >> we are. >> i ask unanimous consent the quorum be dismissed. >> without objection. >> mr. president, my stated goal has been that the senate pass both a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a budget resolution with reconciliation instructions. this is our so-called two-track strategy. both a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a budget resolution with reconciliation instructions. and despite some bumps in the road, always expected on two bills as large and comprehensive as these, we've remained firmly on track to achieve our two-track goal. on the bipartisan track, i have

worked with my colleagues throughout the process to help produce an outcome that all parties find acceptable. i've tried to prod the negotiators when they've needed it and given them space when they've asked for it. deadlines were mess to advance the negotiations. we're here right now, during a rare weekend session, in order to move the bipartisan bill forward as quickly as possible. the idea here is to produce an outcome -- [background sounds] the idea here is to produce an outcome, a real bipartisan agreement that provides a significant down payment towards the level of infrastructure investing, invest maniment our country -- investment our country needs. the process from here is simple. once the legislative text of the agreement is finalized, and i

understand it is being finalized imminently, i will offer it as a substitute amendment as i've always prompted. and -- promised. and then the senate can finally begin voting on additional amendments. given the thoroughly bipartisan nature of the bill, i expect we'll be able to consider all the relevant amendments and finish the bill in a matter of days. but we mow that this bill is not -- we know that this bill is not everything our country needs. that is why after the bipartisan infrastructure legislation passes the chamber, i will immediately move to the other track, passing a budget resolution with reconciliation instructions, which will allow the senate to make historic investments in american jobs, american families and efforts to reverse climate change. both tracks are very much needed by the american people, and we must accomplish both. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

>> the clerk will call the roll.

>> like the coronavirus that's constantly mutating, a couple days ago i read one of the most vocal peddlers of that big lie, mike if lindell, the my pillow guy, has pulled all his advertising from fox news. why? because fox refused to sell him air time for a commercial repeating dangerous, discredited lie that donald trump actually won the last election. it's hard to imagine what level of conspiracy craziness it takes for even fox network to say that goes too far.

but we've reached that point when it comes to the pillow guy. i don't know how mr. my pillow is going to peddle his products now. maybe he'll stand on the street corner handing out flyers. at this point it's hard to rule anything out. but there's another development on the big lie that is far darker and more disturbing. according to recent published reports, former president donald trump is now denouncing the brave police officers who testified this past week before the select committee in the house about the mob insurrection on january 6th in this chamber, in this capitol. disapparentlying them with a word which i -- disparaging them with a word which i will not repeat. his attacks is inexcuse and totally predictable. these officers and hundreds more

more -- he sent this mob to attack this capitol and american democracy because he couldn't bear the shame of losing. he wanted to overturn the election and cling to power like a tinpot dictator. the police officers he now denounces still bear the wounds from the insurrection he ordered. some other trump supporters have attacked at least one to have police officers who testified as a, quote, crisis actor. this morning's new york times has an arm by maureen dowd which i'd like to quote from. she's speaking of laura ingraham, one of the political pundits on fox network. it says laura ingram even gave awards, best exaggerated performance, best political performance, performance in an

action role to the police who recounted their terrifying battles with the mob. they came across as political actors, she said. that doesn't help anything. we want the police to be the police. even as laura ingram was describing as actors these cops who face danger, erin smith was trying to get the death of her husband -- the second officer to take his life after the insurrection -- reclassified from suicide to death in the line of duty. after he was hit in the head with a metal pole during the rampage, he fell into a dark depression, his wife told the times. on the way to his shift, he pulled his car off the george washington park and killed himself with his service weapon. more than casting the police who told their stories as drama queens and fabulous, four house are republicans representing the dregs of congress in maureen

dowd's words, turned up at a washington jail thursday to shine a light on the plight of suspects detained in the january 6th insurrection. one of them, representative paul gosar of arizona, hailed them as political prisoners. since when do republicans care more about criminals in jail than the cops who put them there? since when do they coddle domestic terrorists? since donald trump. there was a point decades ago where many desperation to stop -- in desperation to stop the ravings of a senator from wisconsin a man named joseph welch said to the senator, have you no shame. at long last, have you no shame. that's what john joseph welch famously asked senator joseph mccarthy when mccarthy tried to turn his vicious smear campaign against members of the

united states army after his lies had already broken the lives of so many americans. now an angry, 'em bittered ex-president is turning his vicious smear tactics against a different group of democracy's defenders. it's pointless to ask if the former president feels shame or decency or empathy. we learned long ago that he's incapable of such feelings. so i ask my republican colleagues, what do you say? at long last, will you tell the former president, enough, no more in you've gone too far? this must stop? you all were here on january 6th as i was. you know those capitol police and metropolitan police risked their lives to defend you and me. we now defend them when they're being smeared so scandalously. we're here on a sunday working to pass an historic bipartisan plan to build the backbone of a

strong 21st century economy that benefits all americans. can't we also have the bipartisan backbone to defending the men and women who defended the capitol on january 6th? a few minutes ago i walked into the building, they were there. you know they're going to be there to protect you. the men and women of the capitol police. but theirs is a dangerous job now, more dangerous because of january 6th. we salute them for their bravery and those who have questioned that bravery have really gone too far. on another topic, the most frustrating aspect of america's covid response isn't that a we're being asked to wear masks again -- i have my mask here in covid hot spots. the most frustrating is that we could have put this in the

rearview mirror long ago. we could have saved thousands of lives, over 600,000 americans dead from covid-19. we could have prevented a great deal of the economic pain this pandemic has inflicted on america's families and businesses. we're here now battling a new surge and a more dangerous train of the coronavirus in large part because the people with big megaphones chose cynically and cruelly to spread denial about this virus and the vaccines that prevent it. there lies cost lives. fortunately, this past week seems to have marked a turning point. leaders in both the public and private sectors are stepping up and requiring workers to get vaccinated and to get tested regularly to show they're not sick and not a danger to others. if you want the job, get the jab. it's time. president biden also announced

that all federal workers must get vaccinated or tested. i commend this decision. that's leadership, can and it will save lives. and to some who come to the floor of the senate and other places to say the government should operate more like a business, take note. some of america's most innovative employers -- google, netflix, disney -- have also announced their workers will have to be vaccinated, and there will be more. recently, madam president, several of our republican colleagues took the floor of the senate, even invited over their fan club from the house. they lined up right behind the speakers over on the republican side of the aisle, and they were very strong in their feelings that the speaker of the house should not require or members to wear masks. well, there is a reason for it. and the suggestion that the cdc has flip-flopped or dr. fauci

has flip-flopped belies the reality that the virus has flip-flopped. we're now dealing with something known as a delta variant. there's an urgent message for all americans who have not been vaccinated. while you've been avoiding a vaccination or waiting for just the right moment, the enemy, this covid-19 virus is, has not been idle. the delta variant has arrived in a big can and deadly way -- big and deadly way. here's what dr. rochelle walensky, director of cdc, said. the delta variant is more aggressive, more transferable than previously circulating strains. it is one of the most infectious respiratory viruses we know of in my 20 years' career. now, in case you dismiss dr. walensky as some nonsense-talking, democratic socialist and you prefer the expertise of tucker carlson or laura ingraham on fox, i hope

you will not ignore the grim reality in the actual numbers. over 90% of those infected, hospitalized and dying from coronavirus delta variant are unadvantage any city nateed. over -- unvaccinated. over 90%. people infected by coronavirus delta variant may carry 1,000 times, 1,000 times as much virus and for a longer period of time as those who were infected with the original coronavirus. those infected by the delta variant were roughly twice as likely to be hospitalized than those infected by the original coronavirus. vaccines still are effective against the delta varian whereabout and coronavirus. but don't believe, if you are unvaccinated, that you're safe is around vaccinated people. new data shows fully vaccinated people can spread the delta

variant to others as readily as unvaccinated people. in fact, it gets down to the very basics. until america decides to make vaccination part of our survival, we will continue, sadly, to witness with infections, hospitalizations and deaths and, god forbid, more variants. leaders in both public and private sector are stepping up. we should too. people should be tested regularly if they insist on not being vaccinated. to show that they're not sick and not a danger to others. the covid vaccines are safe, free, readily available and almost miraculously effective, and they're way -- they are the way out of this pandemic. one more point about covid protection. many on the right spitting mad and filled with confusion about the cdc's new guidance urging people in can covid hot spots to wear masks indoors again even if you're vaccinated.

they say how can we trust an agency that keeps changing its rules. because the virus is changing, and the guidance has changed accordingly. the virus has mutated and gained strength because tens of millions of americans have refused to wear masks or get vaccinated. the distortion and outraged speech aren't going to stop the virus. if you want to take the mask off for good, and i sure do, do you want your kids to go to school without being burdened by masks, and i certainly do, we need to tell the truth. reason to the experts. -- listen to the experts. get the vaccine. getting this virus behind us for good is the only way we can reopen america's economy. in the longer term, the way to remain the world's preeminent if economy is to invest in the fundamentals of the strong, sustainable growth and shared prosperity. it's good that the senate is debating this plan. i hope that it passes this week as soon as possible as well as

our budget less are pollution. but in in the meantime, we cannt ignore that the nation is the still in the throes of a pandemic. madam president, i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. >> the clerk will call the roll.

>> as we wait for the text of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill to be finished, here's democrat mark warper, one of the 22 -- mark warner, one of the senators who encouraged his colleagues to approve the legislation which had yet to be finalized when senator warner spoke. >> madam president, let me thank you and all of the floor staff and others who are here. i think at the end of july, we all wish, perhaps if, we were where somewhere else. other than on the floor of the senate. for the 30 years that i've been involved in political discussions in virginia and somewhat at a national level, we have had president after

president, congress after congress talk about the generational unmet needs in infrastructure. we've seen our roads and bridges start to crumble. the estimates are close to, depending on the 14,000 bridges that are in decaying state. in my state, over 700 bridges. we know the potholes in many of our roads and highways, we know our airports resemble third world nations', not the united states of america. we know our ports have not kept up with modern technology. we know that many of our shorelines are dealing with the unprecedented effects of sea level rise. and covid makes high-speed

internet something not nice to have, but an essential. we know that it's time to get past talking about infrastructure and finally do something. that's why i've been proud to be part of this bipartisan effort working with the white house to produce a historic piece of legislation, $550 billion of new pending over five years -- spending over five years that in every category i just mentioned will make historic investments. i've been a little surprised, to tell you the truth, that some of our colleagues on the other side were not part of the bipartisan group and have suddenly said that we can't do infrastructure now. they were all for it when president trump was in, but now they find excuses why not. i have to say i've also been a little bit surprised even on some of those colleagues on my side of the aisle.

the deal we've struck is literally twice as much as where the earlier negotiations were between president biden and some of the republican committee chairs or committee leaders. and there's been some of the sense of, well, you know, infrastructure, that shouldn't be that hard to do. why has it taken us 30 years to get to this moment? i hope, and i know we are finalizing the last couple pieces of legislative language, i hope that we will get that finished as soon as possible so we can get this bill on floor, have amendments, have a debate. but at the end of day, passes this historic legislation and finally put our money where our mouths have been in terms of talking about the needs of infrastructure in this country. i know, madam president, that you've not had probably a lot of people rushing to the floor today, so i am going to take an

extra minute or two -- doesn't mean you are to stay rivet ared to each moment, but i want to talk about this for a few moments in terms of what this'll do for my state. for the commonwealth of virginia. in the commonwealth of virginia, investment in infrastructure has been something that has eluded us for years. i have to acknowledge when i was governor, i tried to find funding needs, particularly in northern virginia, hampton roads, and put forward at that point bipartisan-supported tax referendums in northern virginia and hampton roads. it was horribly unsuccessful. a number of years later a sub gent governor, governor mcdonald, managed to make a down payment on some of the infrastructure needs in virginia. with but not really address on a more comprehensive way the commonwealth needs.

so i'm going to take a couple of moments now and talk about section by section in virginia what this bipartisan, white house-supported, record infrastructure investment will mean to the people of the commonwealth of virginia. let me start with hampton roads. hampton roads, southeast virginia is, peninsula is most at risk from concerns about sea level rise and questions about resiliency more than any other region in the whole country with the with the exception of new orleans. ..

we've got to make sure that hampton rhodes is not subject to this endeavor stating effect of sea-level rise. we also know hampton rhodes that we need more rail. we open recently some rail down to the peninsula but not enough, we've got to make sure that rail that goes from richmond doesn't leave off as a cul-de-sac the peninsula in hampton rhodes with 66 billion-dollar investment in

rail. we may soon be able to see that become a reality. hampton rhodes is home to the , if we don't stay competitive, that port which is the economic engine driver not just of hampton rhodes but most to common wealth will not stay competitive. this legislation will provide $17 billion, a record amount of investment in our ports and i can promise you, the port of virginia will get a share of those resources. finally on just the plain-old issue on roads. hampton rhodes is disconnected from what we call the peninsula in virginia and we've got two

crossings which in summer months can lead to multiple hour backups to bridge tunnels. if we make this 110 billion-dollar investment in roads and bridges, we can potentially see that coming into reality but what we can also make sure is finally finish the widen of interstate 64 between north folk and richmond. i said, wouldn't it be great if in our lifetimes can actually finish this front. well, if we pass the bipartisan, i64 widening from north folk to richmond will be finished. this is incredibly important for the people at hampton rhodes, peninsula, the northern neck to make the investments. let's move up the road to our capitol, richmond area. last week i was looking at the bridge, historic bridge is over

a 100 year's old, saw how decay it was, saw what the water damage was taking place. that bridge without remediation could be forced to close if we don't need the needed investments. well, this bipartisan legislation will commit $110 billion for highway and bridge improvements, host of the other bridges in virginia that are decaying will get fixed. you need to do that make that happen. richmond as well, not just virginia but in the mole common but in the whole country. we've head huge investments, close to $40 billion in transit in this legislation and some of the transit needs will be addressed. we also know in richmond area

and across the common wealth we have a lot of airports. one of the things that we need to continue to do is invest in airports. richmond airport is always in need of additional expansion. $25 billion to improve airports across the country, richmond airport new port airport and dullus airport and they will be improved. i'm very proud working with tim cain, senators from maryland, we made sure that this legislation included a full 8-year reauthorization of the metro system. we are making sure that we are making record investments in transit so we can get metro back up operating again on a full

schedule and we can make the needed safety improvements that are plaguing metro for a number of years. we also know that we've got to continue to build out additional metro stations in northern virginia. we've got to make sure because metro is moving to zero omission buses. that's good news for our climate and our community. the question is when are those zero admission buses going to be built. record investment in electric and other low-carbon and no car --carbon.

another part, if we are going to open up railing in virginia, we have to make sure that we have another bridge, rail bridge across the patomic. i've been working with senator kane on. this kind of investment will make that happen. anybody that lives in northern virginia. as somebody who lives in alexandria, traffic is the existence. route 1 from alexandria to fairfax into prince william county, we know how clogged and congestion it's been. we have been looking for decades in route 1. if we pass this legislation, it'll get done. we move a little bit further west in our state outwards the valley and ronoake and

southwest. for years we have been talking about the danger of i81. there have been prayer groups formed to pray for people who would travel on i81 because there is so much truck traffic that impeded the traveling of public. we have been talking about making improvements and expansions and how do we get the trucks off of i81, how do we bring more rail down to southwest and south side, well, we pass this legislation. we will see those 81 corridor improvements that we've all been waiting for. we will see rail not only go to lynchburg and roanoak and expand and hopefully all the way down to bristol. it's terribly important to make sure that our communities have a

form of transportation opportunities and get the trucks off of i811. we increase the rail capacity both freight and passenger and we will be able to do that. in the south side and southwest, postcovid, the high-speed internet connectivity is not a nice to have but an absolute necessity. a top priority of mine, someone who spent more years in telecommunication industry than politician, 700 million-dollar investment from virginia, american rescue plan funds will make sure that every household across the common wealth has access to high-speed internet connectivity, not 5 years from now or ten years from now but the next couple of. and finally, across southwest virginia for that matter across

all of virginia. we still have families in far southwest that don't have access to cleaning water. still sometimes hold the water in the back of a pick-up truck up and they don't have access to clean drinking water in 2021. well, $55 billion will go to water projects in this legislation and whether they be access to clean drinking water on a regular basis or whether taking out the lead pipes that haunt too many of our urban communities or sewer systems that are frankly 60, 70, 80 year's old. we can make that investment as well. now, there are series of other areas in this legislation that are equally important and at the end of the day, i can't think of a bill that i've worked on that

will have more direct effect on the lives of every virginian over the next 5 years in terms of how you get to work and how you get to school, how you manage to take the kids out on the weekends, how are commerce moves, how we get our water, how we get our internet in this record-setting 550 billion-dollar bipartisan investment in infrastructure. it's time for the senate to take this bill up. i didn't commend all of my colleagues, not just g10 but g2, i thank leader schumer for his work, continuing pushing legislation forward. i want to thank the white house for involvement and even leader mcconnell for voting with this bipartisan group to move this legislation along. we've talked about this for 30 years. we are literally days away from this passing in the united states. we've got to finish the job and get it done.

that madame president, hope i've kept you and address the needs of minnesota but i thank the presiding officer and all of the staff who are here working on this saturday, last day in july in the summer to get this job done and with that, i note -- i yield the floor. i don't yield the floor. i've been surprised that the presiding officers asked me to speak for another 30 minutes, but i will -- i will choose not to do that because i have great respect for the floor staff, to i ask unanimous consent that the senate recess subject to the call of the chair.

>> is there objection? >> no objection. >> without objection. >> subject to the call of the chair.

>> and a little bit of the holding pattern waiting for the text of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure text has been finished. members who negotiated an agreement of the legislation said that the document is almost ready and they expect final passage by the end of the week. as we wait for more on the senate floor, here is senate majority leader chuck schumer on the agenda for the chamber before the august recess. >> we are in a quorum

>> on the bipartisan track i've worked with my colleagues throughout the process to help produce an outcome that all parties find acceptable. i tried to pride the negotiators, we are here right now during rare weekend session

in order the move the bipartisan bill forward as quickly as possible. the idea here is to produce an outcome. the idea is to produce an outcome, real bipartisan agreement that provides significant down payment toward the level of infrastructure investment our country needs. the process from here is simple. once the legislative text of the agreement is finalized and i understand it is being finalized eminently, i will offer it as a substitute amendment as i've always promised. and then the senate can finally begin voting on additional amendments. given the thorough by bipartisan nature of the bill, i expect we will be able to consider all of the relevant amendments and finish the bill in a matter of days.

but we know that this bill is not everything our country needs. that is why after the bipartisan infrastructure legislation passes this chamber, i will immediately move to the other track passing a budget resolution with reconciliation instructions which will allow the senate to make historic investments in american jobs, american families and efforts to reverse climate change, both tracks are very much needed by the american people and we must accomplish both. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. >> the clerk will call the roll

>> we are back with tom foley from the national disability's instudy who is here to discuss the 31st anniversary of the americans with disability act and the challenges that still remain for disabled americans. tom, good morning. >> morning, great to be here. appreciate the opportunity. >> okay. first of all, for our audience, can you tell us exactly what the national disabilities institute is? >> absolutely. so national disability institute nbi is the first and only national non-profit disability nonprofit that works exclusively

on issues of economic equality and economic empowerment for people with disabilities. for the last 15 years, we worked on policy issues, research, convening to really increase opportunities for people with disabilities and their families. >> now, tell us a little bit about your journey as a disability rights advocate? how did you get into this and why is this important? >> well, you know, particularly around economic empowerment i was fortunate enough to have a class in high school around financial education and i just dudley fell in love with it and as a person who is blind, i realized that, you know, my economic future was going to be determined based on, you know, decisions that i made. and so for the last 30 years i've been fortunate enough to be able to work in and around employment and economic empowerment for folks with disabilities really looking at some of those complex drivers of

economic inequality and trying to address them through research policy and partnering. >> and how many people do you work with, are you a national organization or are you based here in washington, d.c.? >> we are based here in washington, d.c. there's about 38 of us that -- 15 of us in the washington, d.c. office and the rest of spread all over the country impacting some dc to alaska to colorado and california. >> now, as i said earlier, this week -- this past week was the 31st anniversary of the americans with disabilities act. i want to show our audience a clip of then president george h. w. bush and what he said during the signing of the ada back in july 1990. here is then president george h. w. bush. >> our success with this act proves that we are keeping faith with the spirit of our courageous forefather who is wrote in the declaration of

independence, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights and these words have been our guide for more than two centuries as we form our more perfect union but tragically for too many americans, the blessings of liberty have been limited or even denied and the civil rights act of '64 took those steps to righting that wrong but the fact remained that people with disability were still victims of segregation and discrimination and this was intolerable and today's legislation brings us closer to that day when no americans will ever again be deprived of their basic guaranties of life, liberty and the pursuit of

happiness. [applause] >> this act is powerful in its simplicity and ensure that people with disabilities are given the basic guaranties for which they have worked so long and so hard. independence, freedom of choice, control of their lives, the opportunity to blend fully and equally into the rich mosaic in the american mainstream and provide the disability community with powerful expansion of protections and then basic civil rights. it will guaranty fair and just access to the fruits of american lives which we all must be able to enjoy. >> so, tom, what made the americans with disabilities act so significant both legally and

socially? >> well, thank you for that clip. it's just a great reminder. you know, it was really a moment in time where people with disabilities were recognized, you know, as the president said of being part of society and having the same civil rights and opportunities as everybody else. you know, to be able to pursue independent living, live in the community to be economically self-sufficient, you know, we we not only words used in the ada but promises made to make sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to be successful, to work and to build an economic future for themselves and their family. >> i want to remind our audience that i want them to take part in this conversation, we are going to open up special lines, that means that for those of you out there, people with disabilities, people with disabilities and not just people with disabilities,

their families and their caretakers, we want to hear from you this morning. so for people with disabilities, we are going to up a special line that's going to be (202)748-8000. once again for people with disabilities and their families we want to hear from you morning at (202)748-8000. everyone else, we will open up a line for you as well. that's line is going (202)748-8001. for everyone else, (202)748-8001. keep in mind you can always text us at (202)748-8003 and we are always reading on social media on twitter@ cspanwj. tom, have there been advancements with people with disabilities since the law has passed and has technology been able to help in any way?

>> absolutely. i think there have been lots of advancements, right, from just the civil rights legislation, from this becoming a more prevalent issue that we talk about in our communities and on c-span and clearly, you know, technology has played a role in that as well. i was thinking about that this morning. as a guy logging in on zoom, i was able to join you today and particularly from that economic development standpoint, you know, the phone here that i use every day allows me to do things around banking and investing and saving money that i couldn't even have imagined, you know, 30 years ago when the ada was first -- was first signed into law. so, you know, a lot has changed over the last 31 years but still, awful lot of economic and societal barriers that we still need to continue to address moving forward. >> tom, i want to read for our

audience two pieces of the americans with disabilities act and i want to get into talking about the barriers you talked about. first ada prohibits discrimination against individuals in all areas of public light, schools, transportation and all public and private places open to the general public. it also guaranties equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities and public accommodations of employment, transportation, state and local government services and telecommunications. now you just brought this up, so what barriers, given that the ada is in existence, what barriers remain for people with disabilities? >> you know, that's a great question and, again, we work largely on issues of economic equality and economic inclusion. so just a couple of statistics.

you know, bureau of labor statistics in 2020 folks with disabilities were employed at about a rate of 18% versus 61% for the rest of the population. when we look at the percentage of people who live below the poverty line, 21% of folks with disabilities were below the poverty line versus 11% on average in the united states. and just one more statistic that i think really catches it for folks with disabilities across all groups, average net worth in the united states is $14,000. for people -- for families without a disability is nearly $84,000. but even beyond that, if someone is an african-american who is living with a disability, their net worth is only $1,221. so clearly we see not only a differentiation between

disability and people without a disability but even within disability, that intersection of racing disability is an economic outcome that clearly we need to address moving forward. >> and i want to put those statistics, tom, that you just talked up on screen so our audience can see it. you were just saying and i want you to talk about this a little bit more of that, 21%, that's one-fourth, a little more than one-fourth of people with a disability lived below the poverty line and that -- and that compares with 11% of people which is 1 -- a little more than 1 in 10 people without a disability lives -- live below the poverty line. so having a disability seems to make you more likely to live

below poverty line in the united states. why? >> some around societal and some opportunity, but some policy. let me just cover one thing. so here if someone is on federal benefits such as ssi with ssi-linked medicaid, there's a 2,000-dollar asset limit and what that means is if a person gets a job and is trying to save money, the moment they save more than $3,000, they can lose their ssi or even more importantly they can lose their ssi linked medicaid. so that is just a huge disincentive, you know, asset and income limits are a disincentive to saving, a disincentive to work and frankly a disincentive for hope. >> and you also brought a second statistic. the average household wealth. so for a working-age person with a disability, their average household wealth is $14,180 and

for the same person without having a disability, that wealth would be $83,985. what do you think the government should be doing to address this huge income and wealth gap there? >> well, you know, there's a number of policies that can be taken into consideration. one of which that we are very excited but is a beginning to address the limit that i just talked about. in 2014 we passed a law of achieving better life experience which creates a think called an able account and these are tax-advantaged savings account for people with disabilities that don't affect one's federal benefits, so, for example, you can save up to $100,000 in abled account and not lose ssi and significant more than that, not

lose medicaid. we have seen how these accounts can be transformational in the lives of people with disabilities. folks buy a house, they start a small business, they have some savings set aside for an economic downturn and helps them stay more financially resilient and even in the pandemic when employment for people with disabilities was hit harder than any other group, you know, if you have a few thousand dollars in savings, obviously you're going to be able to, you know, go through those periods of economic and employment, you know, downturns a lot more comfortably. but the thing about abled accounts is the disability onset has to be before age 26 and so if someone becomes disabled at age 27 or later, in an accident or an illness or a veteran is

injured, they are not eligible for the abled savings accounts. >> let's let some of the callers join the conversation. we will start with kathy who is calling from landsdale, pennsylvania, kathy, good morning. >> good morning, how are you doing? >> just fine, go ahead, kathy. >> first, tom, thank you for everything that you've done. and i was wondering if you ever thought of the thousands of disabled people who right now are sitting bed-ridden because they had their medication taken away. i think it's becoming quite a big problem in the united states. people who are living normal lives with the help of pain medication suddenly are not getting anything and are bedridden and some are even

committing suicide? >> go ahead and response, tom. >> this goes back to what we were just talking about with asset limits and medicaid. with some people with complex medical situations, medicaid is literally a lifeline not only to surviving but provide attendant carry so people can get out in the morning and go out to that job and begin to earn a living and also it provides attending care at night as well. so making sure that people with disabilities maintain assets to their health care, you know, be it through supplemental social security income or be it through another program is really one of the critical issues that we work on along with many others.

>> sheila, good morning. >> yes, i'm here. can you hear me in. >> yes, we can. >> i'm calling regarding two autistic nephews and one of them is a little more high-functioning but the other one is pretty nonverbal and every time they have problems with medical problems, meltdowns, those types of things, dental issues, they have to go to a hospital and there's -- no one is really equipped to help these kids in the hospitals, they end up -- he ends up being strapped down for hours. they end up just taking them home because nobody -- when i say hours, i mean, like 40 hours

and the thing is he also had to wait one time for recently and i think this had lots to do with the meltdowns, he had a bad tooth and he couldn't tell anyone. he waited four months to get because they had to wait four months to take the tooth out because he had to be put out and had to go to the children's hospital and it's a nightmare. he suffered four months, they had to keep giving him antibodies until they could get a room. it's always delayed but more delayed because of the pandemic getting a room. it's just -- it's not good and our state doesn't even have andn

autistic -- >> you point out an important issue and i think, you know, this is exactly one of the things we were talking about, right, a lot has changed since the passing of the ada but there's still a long way to go. you know, it can be really difficult depending on where one list. and i think, you know, today is a perfect example, you know. 31 years ago there wasn't a national tv show talking about disability and talking about some of the issues that the disability community faces and

while we've come a long way, there's still a long way to go but, you know, i really appreciate the opportunity for people to be able to call in and, you know, highlight some of these issues, you know, so that more people can be informed and hopefully moving forward we can do even a better job of protecting the civil rights of folks with disabilities. >> now, tom, how did the pandemic affect employment for people with disabilities? >> i mentioned earlier that a lot of sometimes folks with disabilities, they are kind of the last hired and first to be let go. we saw that in january 2020, of the people working -- of the people with disabilities who were working 20% of them lost their jobs. that's a full swift.

if you were african-american and had a disability and working, 44% of those folks lost their jobs. so, you know, again this really underlies, you know, the importance of those able accounts i was talking about earlier and i just want today circle back to that and touch on one thing. you know, imagine how much -- how much being laid off would be if you were able to have more than a thousand dollars. one of the pieces of legislation that we are working on right now and we are really excited about is called the able-age adjustment act. so as i mentioned earlier, currently as the law stands now, disability onset to qualify for an able account is to qualify age 26. the able age adjustment act would change that to age 46. so if one became disability leader in life in your 20's or 30's all the way to age 41,

you would qualify for an abled account. we have seen how having a few extra thousand dollars in savings can be transformation in the lives of people with disabilities. we estimate that as many as 6 million new people would be eligible for these able accounts, a million of those would be veterans and so, you know, please everyone watching today, you know, support the able-age adjustment act, talk to legislators. you know, this can make a difference between financial resilience and financial catastrophe in a particularly as we continue to find the way through the pandemic. >> tom, we have a question from one of our social media followers who wants to know what you think about president biden saying long-term covid patients may be able to use the ada as disabled people?

>> you know, i really appreciate many of the things president biden has talked about around disability recently. you know, clearly folks -- we don't even know what some of the issues that they'll be facing. you know, from the education side of the house, from the employment side of the house, from the long-term medical implications, you know, we really applaud everything that president biden has been doing to recognize this. you know, it's funny too, when he was talking about the anniversary of the ada, you know, he highlighted how the ada promised, you know, new opportunities for folks with disabilities so be that medical coverage or making able accounts available to more people, we really approve much of the work that president biden has been doing. >> speaking of president biden,

last monday he came out to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the ada with remarks at the rose garden at the white house. here is a portion of what president biden said about the ada. >> 31 years ago after passage many americans have never lived in a world without the ada. generations have grown up not knowing a time before it existed. but many of us can still recall in america where a person with disability was denied service in restaurants and grocery stores and could be or a person using a wheelchair couldn't ride in a train or take a bus to work or to school or an employer could refuse to hire you because of a disability, an america that wasn't built for all americans. then we passed the ada and made a commitment to build a nation for all of us, all of us and we moved america closer to fulfilling that promise of liberty and justice and maybe

most importantly dignity and equality for all. you know, perhaps most importantly, we did it together. this was a democratic bill signed by a republican president, a product of passion and compassion, not partisanship, progress that wasn't political but personal to millions of families. >> another thing that president biden has talked about was employers who pay those who are disabled less than the minimum wage. so can you talk a bit -- first a bit first of how that happens and what is your group doing about that? >> sure. so what you're referring to is sort of known as the 14c exemption which allows certain employers who hold a thing called the shelter workshop to pay people with disabilities below minimum wage and -- and

quite often far below minimum wage. so this, you know, it's funny given the clip that you just played. this goes back to where equality was less important. we have been working on the 14c issue for a number of years trying to do away with the exemption and recognizing that people with disabilities are just like everybody else. people with disabilities want to work, they want to build an economic future for themselves and their family and they certainly cannot do that if they're not even making minimum wage. big fans of president biden's work around 14c and eliminating that and making sure that people with disabilities are paid a prevailing wage, a living wage

when they go to work every day. you know, we recognize that, you know, people don't need to be fixed, but policies and broken systems do. and so we work, you know, policy and research issues to really change economic -- change and improve economic outcomes for folks with disabilities. >> let's go back to our phone call and talk to anthony who is calling from hungington station, new york, anthony, good morning. >> good morning, tom. i had a spinel injury in 1973 when nothing was accessible, buses, trains, zero accessibility and there was really an awakening to have to readapt to a new life in a wheelchair but since then -- i have to give the ada massive credit transformed the country

and transformed the country to be accommodating towards us that have to deal with this kind of barriers everywhere. barriers have definitely becreased. one of the barriers i've fight to go get resolved in the last four years, you know, hotel furniture was not covered under ada and when you go to a hotel, bed height to be 20 inches to 3e 20 inches seat-height rather and currently getting into a bed of 30-inches high is impossible. i've had to sleep in my wheelchair because i could not get into the bed in a hotel. i have been trying to get hotels and i'm wonder if you can help

me with. i invented a portable wheelchair that can be brought up and raises the wheelchair no matter what the height is and i get nothing but a deaf ear at this point. pools are accessible, bathtubs are accessible, i'm wondering if we can get together and work on this. >> terrific, i love that topic and here is why, right, we were just talking about people with disabilities who want to work and want to build an economic future for themselves. you know what else they want to do is start small businesses. they want to invent new technologies, you know, people with disabilities see a gap and our caller saw a gap, invented a product and now, you know, wants to, you know, make an industry

more accessible to serve more people. i'm always super excited to hear about people with disabilities with ideas, with inventions, starting a new business. this is part of that energy, part of the economic opportunity that we really need to be able to -- to leverage and encourage in the disability community, you know, maybe in 5 years that's a 10 million-dollar business, right, so i'm always super excited to -- to talk with people who are filling a gap in a creative way and starting small businesses. >> let's talk to kelly who is calling from longview, texas. kelly, good morning. >> good morning, gentlemen. i just had a few comments. i'm disabled. i've been in a wheelchair about 5 years now and just recently

maybe six months ago i've got a prosthetic leg. i'm able to walk pretty good now and the comments i have are the -- there is no enforcement for people that do not follow the ada or in my state the texas accessibility standards. you can complain -- you can file complaints. my post office is federal. i filed a complaint and took 18 months for them to change their parking striping to get the accessible parking near the front door. when my primary care physician sends me to a doctor, an eye doctor for a kidney doctor or a lung doctor for work, i have to pull them up on google earth to see if their building is accessible, normally they are not and i will call them and i will say, well, i don't see a

ramp, i don't see, you know, parking near the front door and they say, well, you just come up here and call us when you get here and we will come outside and we will bring you in back door where we have a wooden ramp built. well, you know, that's not acceptable and there's nothing a fellow can do. also the 30--year-old law needs to be way updated because everything has changed, people now like myself, we have electric wheelchairs. we pull them on the trailer or a lift generally to take them with us and there's no parking designated for that. so we have to parkway off in the back 40's per se to put our wheelchair down and get it off and get into wal-mart. but there is many, many items

that need to be updated in the ada and texas accessibility standards, it's just a mirror of the ada in the most part and i design buildings for a living and i also inspect, i also review plans for accessibility and i inspect buildings and probably one or 1 or 2% of all brand-new buildings built today comply fully. the other 95 to 98%, there's always issues. >> so tom, how do you get the ada enforced? >> yeah, you know, i think this goes back to where we started. you know, so much has changed for so many people and yet there's a long way to go. some of that, i think, is around education. you know, some of that is around enforcement. i think a lot of that is around conversations like we are having today, right, where we get to highlight these issues to people

who maybe normally don't care about them or don't think about them so that, you know, there are more people advocating for change. you know, sometimes it does come down to complaints or sending that letter or highlighting the issue. you know, it's -- as we move forward as the society goes from civil rights and inclusion standpoint, you know, it takes a lot of work and it takes work by the media and takes work by individuals and takes work by all of the disability organizations both, you know, nationally and locally that do an amazing job but there's a list in there and to everyone living it, to everyone who is working on it and to everyone who is giving a voice to the movement, you know, thank you. this is how we get change. it's not always as fast as we

want but as martin luther king says, the universe is long but short-term justice. >> sarah, good morning. >> hey, good morning, tom. i am -- i am sitting here actually just tickled. i was listening this morning and just hearing your enthusiasm about not limiting the ability of people. my mother was a senior. i'm a senior caretaker. so limiting a senior that's on social security to say, well, yeah, you can work, but we don't want you to work so much or you might lose some of your benefits. that is just so counterintuitive

to their mental state, their -- their overall well-being. it's the limit that people put on people with disabilities or age or color or anything in this world that limits their choices. >> go ahead and respond to this, tom. >> first of all, thank you for the kind words. yeah, you know, i think, you know, as a society we are grappling with lots of the issues right now. having all sorts of different limits, some, you know, are policy limits and some are just societal expectations. but, again, you know, thank you for what you said. you know, people with disabilities, you know, they are really like everybody else.

you know, we want to work, we want to build an economic future for ourselves and our family. , you know, we want to do something for a living that we love. and, you know, let's make sure, you know, working together that everyone including people with disabilities and including people with disabilities of color have as many opportunities as possible, you know, to build a future for themselves. >> well, we would like to thank tom foley, executive director of the national disability institute for being with us this morning and taking us through the 31st anniversary of the americans with disabilities act. tom, thank you so much for spending time with us this morning. >> thank you so much for the opportunity. really appreciate it. if people need more information, nationaldisability.org. again, nationaldisability.org. thank you for the opportunity

>> and give them space when they've asked for it. deadlines were necessary to advance the negotiations. we are here right now during a rare weekend session in order to move the bipartisan bill forward as quickly as possible. the idea here is to produce an

outcome -- the idea here is to produce an outcome, a real bipartisan agreement that provides a significant down payment towards the level of infrastructure investing, investment our country needs. the process from here is simple. once the legislative text of the agreement is finalized and i understand it is being finalized imminently, i will offer it as a substitute amendment as i've always promised and then the senate can finally begin voting on additional amendments. given the thoroughly bipartisan nature of the bill, i expect we will be able to consider all of the relevant amendments and finish the bill in a matter of days. but we know that this bill is not everything our country needs. that is why after the bipartisan infrastructure legislation passes this chamber, i will immediately move to the other track, passing a budget

resolution with reconciliation instructions which will allow the senate to make historic investments in american jobs, american families and efforts to reverse climate change. both tracks are very much needed by the american people and we must accomplish both. i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. >> the clerk will call the roll

quorum call: >> we're in a bit of a holding pattern here waiting if the word that the text of $2.3 trillion infrastructure bill has been finished. members of the bipartisan group of senators have negotiated an agreement on the legislation, said the document is almost ready and they expect final passage by the end of the week. as we wait for a senator to

speak, yesterday massachusetts senator elizabeth warren spoke about the moratorium on residential evictions which expired last week. senator warren serves as chair as the senate housing subcommittee on economic policy. >> thank you madame president. almost exactly a year ago today, i stood here and called for congress to take action to protect renters before the expiration of the eviction moratorium during early weeks of the pandemic. today like a year ago, we are only hours away from a fully preventible housing crisis. the cdc's eviction moratorium expires tonight at midnight putting millions of families still recovering from the economic fallout of covid-19 at risk for losing their homes, for losing the bedrock of their safety and stability.

right now more than 11 million renters report being behind on rent. that's 1 out of 7 renters and people of color who have been hit hardest by this pandemic are disproportionately at risk nearly 1 quarter of black renters report being behind on rental payments. last year congress worked together to account for that staggering reality. we provided more than $45 billion in emergency rental assistance, that money is now finally getting into the hands of landlords around the country. it's helping families who lost jobs, get caught up on the missed payments but the money is getting out too slowly. some states and local governments opened their assistance programs only last month. some hadn't spent a single dollar by the beginning of june. well, that's starting to change. in june states delivered more

than 1 and a half billion dollars in emergency rental assistance, that money went to help nearly 300,000 households. but there are still billions of dollars to distribute and millions of families in need. we have the tools and we have the funding, what we need is the time. i agree that the eviction moratorium is not a long-term solution but let me be very clear. it is the right short-term action. it's how we keep families safely in their homes while states deliver emergency aid. it's how we keep families who are starting to recover from the worst economic crisis of their lifetime get back on their feet. millions of jobs lost, billions still -- businesses still shuttered and child care for too

many families with patch work of uncertainty. the recovery underway in this country is historic and it will continue but it has not yet reached every family. but the need is not just economic, we are still in the throws of a public health emergency that is trending in the wrong direction. cases of covid-19 are rising, hospitalizations and deaths are rising, the delta variant is more contagious threatening to spread faster among half of the country that remains unvaccinated. needlessly evicting families would risk escalating our public health crisis. the cdc understood that reality when it issued an eviction moratorium in september. the agency was cleared. i want to quote the language that they used. housing stability helps protect

health. that's right. research shows that moratoriums aid in reducing infections and death due to covid-19 and research also shows that when eviction moratorium expires, there's an associated increase in covid-19 and mortality. yesterday congresswoman cori bush sent letter. i want to quote her letter. she said, i know firsthand the drama and devastation that comes with the violence of being evicted and we have a responsibility to do everything we can to prevent this trauma from being inflicted on our neighbors and communities. cori bush is exactly right. my offices heard from so many people in massachusetts who are

terrified about the possibility of losing their homes. i know that each of my colleagues here must be hearing these stories in every state in this country there are families sitting around their kitchen table right now trying to figure out how to survive a devastating disruptive and unnecessary eviction. congress has a choice to make. it is a privilege for us to represent people and we have a duty to exercise our power on their behalf. every senator in this chamber should be grateful that they have the power right now to keep families safe. my colleagues understood the stakes in march of 2020 when congress passed the care's act, the eviction moratorium into law. they understood the stakes when we provided historic funding for

emergency rental assistance. i urged them to join me now in continuing this life-saving protection, as states devin out assistance to keep renters health and keep landlords' pay and most of all, to keep families safe. thank you, madame president, i yield the floor and i suggest the absence of

author of the great influenza. the story of the deadliest pandemic in history and he's here to discuss the current covid-19 pandemic and how it compares to seasonal and pandemic viruses seen in the last few years. john, good morning. >> good morning. >> so first, take us through your book, the great influenza, the story of the deadliest pandemic in history. why was this flu pandemic so deadly? >>well, because the virus was -- the pandemic occurs when a new virus jumps from animals to humans which has happened numerous times historically. this virus in 1918 happened to

be quite, quite virilant. it first surfaced in march in the united states, actually in the united states it was first noticed although there was a question of where it actually started. the first wave was quite mild. it was so mild that you could read medical journal articles in which people were saying this looks like influenza, it smells like influenza but it's actually not killing enough people so it's not influenza. i will give you one statistic of how mild it was, the british fleet which controlled the coast of use 313 sailors sick enough to miss duty in the middle of the war but only four of them died, four out of 10,000,

however, that first wave that the virus was also not particularly transmissible. it was certainly contagious and it did get in many places around the world but it wasn't too explosive and had extensive to teeter out, direct quote from scientists who wrote a comprehensive review. the virus adapt today humans and adapted better to transmit itself and caused an explosive second wave that killed tens of millions of people in an an incredibly short period of time. you know, the numbers is 50 to 100 million people. we didn't really have great data back then.

the world was a lot smaller back then so that 50 to 100 million in 1918 equals 225 million to 450 million people today. so just imagine that impact today. i said a minute ago, it killed people in an incredibly short period of time. worldwide probably two-thirds of the deaths occurred in 4 to 15 weeks and in any particular community it moved faster than that and, again, two-thirds of the deaths over a two-year period would occur in those few weeks. it continued to mutate and another variant emerged and caused a third wave in the spring, beginning in march of 1919. that was pretty lethal but less lethal than the second wave.

and after that partly because of the virus continued to mutate, partly because people's immune systems became used to it and more better able to respond, it became seasonal influenza and continued to search away until 1957 when another pandemic virus came along. the influenza that we are all familiar with, does -- it is partly the 1918 virus. so the virus was extraordinary. it could kill people in less than 12 hours, you know, that was unusual but it happened. most of the people actually died from a second bacterial

infection. it's not clear how many people died from the secondary infection and how many initially died from the virus. there are considerable number of parallels between 1918 and covid. for one thing in 1918 infected and affected virtually every organ in the body. there's tremendous cardiovascular complications and so forth and heart problems. another was that the neurological problems were very, very common. one very good observer noted secondary to pulmonary and, again, that's very similar to what's happening today. one of the biggest differences, one i already mentioned was

duration. as violent as the attack was in 1918 it was over in an incredibly short period of time and that obviously is very different from today. so even though 1918 was much more intense and much more tragic, in some ways the stress on people was less because when it was over, it was over. it was much shorter period. another very big difference is the target demographic who died, probably two-thirds of the dead in 1918 were age 18 to 45 or 50. so it was young people and since children under 10 particularly children under the age of 5, it was a very -- very lethal. >> john, let me bring the statistics to our audience here. so for the 1918 flu pandemic there were more than 500 million

people infected with the flu which at that time it was about one-third of the world's population. there were 50 million people deaths worldwide and there were 675,000 deaths in the united states. right now with covid according to the john hopkins university, covid tracker, there have been 197 million cases global worldwide of covid, more than -- of course, we had more than 600,000 deaths in the united states from covid. so those numbers are not exactly the same, but we are still talking the hundreds of millions of infections worldwide with covid. when we talk about the flu pandemic, one of the things that struck me that you said that the seasonal flu that we are dealing

with still today is connected to that same flu pandemic that happened more than a hundred years ago with the flu pandemic. did i hear you say that correctly? >> that's correct. some of the genetic information, yes. >> so does that signal that the covid-19 virus we are dealing with now could still be around in in some way, shape, form or fashion a hundred years from now? >> yeah, personally i think that this virus is never going away. that doesn't mean that it's always going to be as dangerous as it is now. in 1889 there was what everybody taught was an influenza pandemic. it was called the russian flu but there's actually a couple of months ago some scientists speculated that that was

influenza caused by a coronavirus, c43 which today causes the common cold. it's impossible to say whether or not they are correct but it's an interesting hypothesis that they advance, you know, their evidence wasn't compelling but -- but it's interesting and we don't really know. one of the main things that was pretty good evidence they presented was that this common cold virus entered the human population at approximately the same time as the 1889 pandemic. that's the main reason that they advance the argument that it was actually covid or coronavirus pandemic, not influenza. but i would expect this virus to be around essentially forever, but, again, that doesn't mean it's going to be dangerous

forever. i think it's most likely that we will -- our immune systems and vaccines are -- are going to be able to handle it eventually and it won't be nearly as dangerous. >> let me remind or viewers that they can take part in this conversation. we are going to open up regional lines. that means if you are in the eastern or central time zones, your number is going (202)748-8000. if you're in the mountain or pacific time zones, your number (202)748-8001. keep in mind you can always text us at (202)748-8003 and always reading on social media and twitter at facebook.com/c-span. john, can you explain to us how the 1918 pandemic was actually ended? what did we do to stop it in the united states, was it vaccines,

was it masks, was it social distancing, how did it end? >> well, it ended naturally. you know, our science is not advanced to develop a vaccine for it at the time we didn't even know exactly what a virus was, scientists knew there were the extremely small organisms that caused disease, in fact, isolated polio and even developed the vaccine against polio that was 100% effective in monkeys as early as 1910. but they couldn't -- they couldn't grow it. i'm sorry, i lost my train of thought for a second. you know, there was a tremendous amount of scientific research that came out in 1918 pandemic including the definition of a

virus but that didn't come about until the -- figured it out until 1925. there were two lessons that came out of the pandemic in terms of controlling it, number 1, tell the truth, that's enormously important in terms of controlling it. so in number 2, that we receiverred were not pharmaceutical inventions. those things could have some impact and that would be the social distancing and -- and closing down when necessary and you will not get people to cooperate without necessary interventions if people didn't believe. we have been divided on partisan

lines in terms of the pandemic. in terms of how it actually ended, you know, pretty much nationally as i said earlier -- it's likely anyway that the virus continued to mutate and mutate in a direction becoming more mild than the second wave. at the same time, people's immune systems, they had seen the virus once and they had seen the virus twice as it came around again and again they were much better able to handle it without the deadly repercussions. you know, seasonal influenza does kill people and -- and it did continue to kill people but not in anything like the numbers during the pandemic. >> we have a question from you from social media followers about the differences between the pandemic then and the pandemic now.

the question is do you think that americans took pandemic more seriously back then because it killed so many children early on? >> well, they took it much more seriously back then because it killed everybody. you know, people were lied to in 1918, there was fake news because the government said, this is nothing to worry about. they actually said it was another name. it was called spanish flu but those lies didn't have any impact because people could see then their neighbor, you know, their spouse getting sick, dying sometimes from horrific symptoms. i mean, scary symptoms. you could bleed not only from your nose or mouth but you could actually bleed from eyes and ears. that's a pretty scary symptom. people were turning so dark blue

from lack of oxygen, one doctor wrote, that he couldn't distinguish african-american soldiers from white soldiers. when you have things like that happening, you take it very, very seriously. there was tremendous amount of fear out there in 1918. much more than today. >> here is another question from our social media followers because early on in the pandemic, we heard a lot of people say that this covid-19 is nothing but the flu all over again. this is just a flu. one of our social media followers wants to know what is the difference between influenza and the current coronaviruses. >> well, they are different viruses. they obviously cause similar symptoms and they spread pretty much the same way. you know, i don't know how else

to put it than that. you know, influenza can -- as i've said earlier, in 1918, that that virus affected every organ in the body as covid does and it's pretty unusual for seasonal influenza. i think the fact that the different organs are affected it's different evidence that what is actually doing the damage is not necessarily the virus infecting the -- those organs but that the immune system when the body in trying to fight back the disease is throwing every weapon it has at the virus and this affects other organs in the body, you know, that would be similar between the two pandemics but that doesn't happen normally with seasonal influenza. you know, normally seasonal influenza, the virus combine to

receptors in nose and mouth and the respiratory track in the eyes also but normally does not bind to cells deep in your lung so you get, the headaches and fever and so son, but you don't normally get pneumonia from a viral pneumonia from influenza. you could do that, you did do that in 1918. that was sars covid 2 does have the ability to bind to cells in your upper respiratory track and that's why it passes easily from one person to another and easily binds to cells in the lung and if that happens, you have a viral pneumonia. that's not a good place to be. >> a lot of the vaccine deniers

say -- are saying, well, look at how few flu cases we had over the last year, that means that these -- these things must have been the same thing that they're just classifying covid cases, they are classifying flu cases as covid cases. i'm sure that you heard that too. what do you say to those people? >> well, the reason we had so little influenza last year was because the -- the two diseases spread almost exactly the same way. so all that effort to protect ourselves from covid actually stopped not just influenza but pretty much every respiratory disease. people are keeping distances. if they're staying home, if they're not going to bars, concerts and so forth, there's much less opportunity for any respiratory virus to spread. so that's why there was so

little influenza last year. >> let's go to our phone lines and let's start with earl in florida on the republican line. >> good morning, i'm a war hero war vet, back in 1980 we got vaccine and 750,000 didn't have a choice about getting the vaccine and i did get this covid vaccine. you know, there's a lot of us who have this gulf work illness, we think it came from the vaccine and the military kind of denies it. not as a vaxx denier but experienced person, i really think my life and quality of life over the 35 years is extremely affected by the vaccine. i see the personal coalition. i have many friends who have had

the same type of symptoms and i don't hold it against the deniers -- the vaccine because if i had to do it all over again i would have refused the mandatory vaccine at that the military was going us, just simply because i didn't want -- i wouldn't hold it against anybody. i think -- i think the quality of life issue is a personal decision, but i also think there's things that they don't tell us, they don't tell us about the data, they don't tell us about all of the things that can happen to your quality of life later in life, so thanks, that's my comment. i wanted if mr. perry can comment on those issues. >> first, i appreciate what you did for the country and for the world back then. second, you know, i don't know anything specifically about that vaccine. obviously there was concern that