democracynow.org 10/15/20 10/15/20 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! as the united states reports nearly 60,000 new coronavirus cases -- the highest daily toll since august -- the trump administration has reportedly adopted a policy o of herd immunity. deliberately letting the virus infect much of the u.s. population. this comes despite warnings from the world health o organization. >> letting the virus circulate

unchecked, therefore means allowing unnecessary infections, sufferining, and death. amy: however, , some public heah professionals are supporting a herd immunity strategy. takes it willr it rereach herdrd immunitity, thehe difficicult it is to protectct e high-risk, , elderly,y, and othr high-risisk people.. strtrategyhy thihis target inin my view w will minimize den the long-term. amy: we will host a debate on herd immunity and how best to confront the virus. plus, we will air excerpts from the senate confirmation hearings for supreme court justice nominee amy coney barrett. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine reportrt. i'm amy goodman.

the united states reported nearly 60,000 new coronavirus cases on wednesday, the highest daily toll since august. about 1000 u.s. residents died bringing19, 24 hours, the death toll since march to nearly 217,000 -- still the highest in the world. in wisconsin, a county judge wednesesy issued a temporary injunction b barring goverernory evers' emergency orders limiting the size of indoor gatherings -- a legal victory for state republicans and the tavern league of wisconsin, which sued to overturn limits on gatherings in restaurants and bars. the ruling came as wisconsin officials opened a field hospital near milwaukee to deal with a surge in covid-19 patients, with new infections at record levels and nearly 9-in-10 hospital beds already occupied. at the university of alabama, head football coach nick saban

and athletic director greg byrne have tested positive for coronavirus. the diagnoses come after the southeastern conference canceled two games this weekend due to covid-19 outbreaks, vanderbilt at missouri and lsu at florida. the florida cancellation came just days after gators coach dan mullen called on his university to pack 90,000 students and fans into the gainesville football stadium, citing florida governor ron desantis' lifting of all restrictions on the size of public gatherings. meanwhile, "the new york times" reports during the early days of the pandemic in february, the trump administration gave wealthy republican party donors at the hoover institution advance warning about the threat posed by coronavirus, even as president trump and white house officials made rosy statements minimizing the threat of covid-19. the insider warning came ahead of a stock market crash.

at the white house, first lady melania trump saidid wednesdayay her 14-year-old son barron trump has recovered from a mild case of covid-19, writing in a statement -- "luckily, he is a strong teenager and exhibited no symptoms." melania trump says she experienced a roller coaster of symptoms after her diagnosis in early october, with body aches, a cough, headaches, and extreme fatigue. at least 40 people have been linked to a white house cluster of cases centered around a superspreader event on september 26. on the campaign trail, president trump continued to defy the urgent warnings of his own public health officials as he rallied thousands of maskless supporters wednesday at a packed campaign rally at the airport in des moines, iowa. a billboard along the way to the rally featured an arrow pointing toward the airport with the words "trump covid superspreader event" in white letters over a red background.

trump's rally came as iowa hit a record level of covid-19 hospitalizations, with outbreaks at more than 60 long-term care facilities and test positivity rates about 20%. iowa is considered a yellow zone by the cdc, and according to the trump administration's own guidelines, public gatherings should be limited to 25 people or less. it was thought there was something like 2500 people at that rally. trump is planning another rally today in greenville, north carolina -- another state experiencing near-record levels of infection. coronavirus cases are surging across europe as colder weather forces people indoors, with an exponential spread of covid-19 prompting new lockdowns across parts of the continent. on wednesday, french president emmanuel macron announced a four-week nightly curfew for paris and eight other french cities beginning sataturday as hospitalizations in france

surged to an all-time high. germany reported nearly 700000 w coronavirus cases thursday, its highest daily rate since the early days of ththe pandemic.. chancellor angela merkel met wednesday with the governors of germany's 16 states to plan new social distancing guidelines and mask-wearingng rules. disease modelers say that if 95% of europeans immediately begin wearing masks while in public, europe could avoid more than 280,000 deaths by february. back in the united states, supreme court justice nominee amy coney barrett faced eight more hours of questioning on wednesday as republicans race to confirm her before the election. barrett is a right-wing judge who once clerked for antonin scalia. if confirmed, barrett will give conservatives a 6-3 majority. on wednesday, she refused to say if she thinks climate change is happening when questioned by democratic senator kamala

harrrris, joe bin's s running mate. sesen. harris:s: do you believe climate change is happening and threatening the air we breathe and the water we drink? again, iett: senator, was wondering where you were going with that, you have asked me if there is a question like that are completely uncontroversial like whether covid-19 is infectious, whether smoking causes cancer, and then trying to analogize that to soliciting any opinion, that is a very contentious matter -- opinion, that is on a very contentious matter of public debate and i will not do that. i will not express a view on a matter of public policy, especially one that is politically controversial because that is inconsistent with the jududicial rorole as ie explaiained. sen. harris: yet major point clear you believe this is s -- amy: during two days o of heararings, amy coney barrett repeatedly refefused to answer questions about her views on abortion in the future of roe v. wade despite her public record opposing reproductive rights.

in 2006, barrett signed a newspaper advertisement that stated -- "it's time to put an end to the barbaric legacy of roe v. wade and restore laws that protect the lives of unborn children." meanwhile, barrett is facing criticism for failing to initially didisclose in her sene filings s her record of speaking to anti-choice groups at notre dame. barrett has already amended her filing once after cnn uncovered evidence she gave two talks in 2013 to anti-choice groups at -- antiabortion groups at the school. cnn has now revealed barrett also spoke to, or at least was scheduled to speak to, an anti-choice group in 2007. under senate rules, barrett is required to provide a list of all public talks she has given in her professional career. one unusual moment from wednesdaday's s hearing g occurd when republican senator thom tillis questioned barrett about voting in the upcoming election. sen. tillis: i for one hope every registered voter and in this country vote on november 11. do youou agree with that?

hon. barrett: of course. yes. amy: for the record, elelection day is n november 3, not novembr 11. u.u.s. felony disenfranchihisemt will bar 5.2 million american citizens from voting in november's election. that's according to a new report by the sentencing project, which finds nearly 2.5% of the voting-age u.s. population is disenfranchised due to a felony conviction. in north carolina, a federal judge ruled absentee ballots wednesday submitted by mail must have a third-party witness signature. the ruling, which will make it harder for people to safely vote during the pandemic, was celebrated by north carolina republicans. in california, republican party officials say they will refuse a cease-and-desist order to remove falsely labeled drop boxes for mail-in ballots from public locations in several counties. after california's secretary of state threatened criminal prosecutions, republican officials removed the word "official" from labels reading "official ballot drop off boxes"

but said they would defy order to remove the boxes by today. theefy an order to remove boxes entirely by president thursday. trump voiced support for the scheme, tweeting -- "fight hard republicans. they have been taking advantage of the system for years!" meanwhile, videos obtained by "the washington post" show how a network of conservative activivists has made oppositioio mamail-in ballots a central priority of the 2020 campaign. this is bill walton, president of the council for national policy's executive committee, speaking on august 21. >> this is a spiritual battle we are in. this is good versus evivil, ande have to do eveverything g we cao win. amy: another video filmed in august shows 26-6-year-old conservative activist charlie kirk celebrating the closure of college campuses due to the coronavirus, saying it will lead to republican victories at the polls. > the democrats have done a

fofoolish thing g shutting down these campuses.s. it will remove ballot harvesting opportunitities and d all the vr fraud d they usuallyly do on coe campuses, so they are r roving half a million votes off the table. please, kekeep the c campuses closed. it is a great thing. amy: in california, pacific gas & electric has issued power shut-offs for tens of thousands of homes across the bay area and nonorthern califora,a, facing dy conditions and high winds thatat threaten to make the state's worst fire season on record even worse. this comes as new research shows that due to the climate crisis, california's fire weather days will double in some parts of the state by the end of the century. the trump administration says it's planning to welcome indonesia's defense minister to the pentagon today despite u.s. laws barring the entry of people accused of major human rights abuses. general prabowo subianto has bebeen implicated inin mass kils in east timor, papua and aceh, as well as the kidnappining and torture of activists in jakarta.

he also worked directly with the u.s. defense intelligence agency and u.s. special forces in indonesia. he had been banned from visiting the united states under presidents bill clinton, george w. bush, and barack obama. in thailand, the government cracked down on pro-democracy protesters thursday, imposing a state of emergency in an effort to quell the ongoing student-led movement to remove prime prime minister. two protest leaders and at least 20 pro-democracy activists were arrested early thursday morning in bangkok after tens of thousands gathered outside the prime minister's office. the state of emergency bans gatherings of more than five people and prohibits news media that is a so-called threat to national security. in honduras, environmental activist arnold joaquin morazan erazo was shot and killed in his home earlier this week according to local media.

he was reportedly one of 32 water defenders targeted and criminalized for protesting an open pit mine in the community of guapinol. violence against land and water defenders and indigenous leaders in honduras has skyrocketed since the u.s.-backed coup in 2009. the vatican held its first ever sexual abuse trial wednesday with two catholic priests. priest 28-year-old gabriele martinelli is accused of sexually assaulting an altar boy between 2007 and 2012 in a seminary in vatican city. an older priest is accused of covering up the abuse. the trial comes as the catholic church faces ongoing criticism that it is not doing enough to battle endemic sexual abuse within the church and a culture that covers it up. in louisville, kentucky, breonna taylor's boyfriend kenneth walker, who was in bed with taylor when police shot and killed her in a hail of gunfire in her own apartment in march, said wednesday that police did not attempt to save breonna taylor as she lay dying.

he also told cbs's gayle king that no one identified themselves in the deadly no-knock police raid that led to breonna taylor's death. >> and loudd bang at the door. nobody was responding. >> you all did as, who is it? >> several times. both of us. there was s no response. >> the police say they said several times s "it's thee p po" >> if they knknocked on t the dr and say who it was, we could hear them. percent suren nobody identify themselves. amy: this comes less than a month after a grand jury failed to charge any of the three officers who conducted the raid with the killing of breonna taylor. on wednesday, a second grand juror joined a motion to lift the gag order on the grand jury proceedings in order to speak publicly about the decision. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!,

democracynow.org, the quarantine report. when we come back, we will host a debate on herd immunity and how best to confront coronavirus. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i am amy goodman, here in new yorkrk city, joined remotely byy cohost nermeen check. nermeen: welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: the united ststates reportd nearly 60,000 new coronavirus cases onon wednesday, the highet daily toll since august. about 1000 u.s. residents died of covid-19 wednesday bringing the death toll since march to nearly 217,000 -- the highest

death toll in the world. this comes as "the washington post" and "the new york times" report that trump administration officials say they've adopted a policy of deliberately letting the virus infect much of the u.s. population in order to attain herd immunity. health experts warn the strategy might not even be possible and could lead to more than 2 million u.s. deaths. in geneva, switzerland, the head of the world health organization dr. tedros adhanom g ghebreyesus said herd immunity should only monday be reached through vaccination, not natural infection. achieved byty are protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it. never in thehe history of public health has herd i immunity and used as a strategy for responding to an outbrbreak, let alone a pandemic.

it is scientifically and ethically p problematic. in most countries, less than 10% of the population have been infected with the covid-19 virus. letting the virus circulate unchecked, therefore, means allowing unnecessary infections, suffering, and death. amy: while t the world health organizatition is warning natios nototo adopt aererd imnity strategy, some epidemiologists and doctorors have embraced it. a group of three professors and doctors who teach at harvard, stanford, and oxford recently co-authored an open letter in defense of herd immunity. it's known asas the great barrington declaration. the letter begins -- "as infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists, we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing covid-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call focused protection."

the letter goes on to state -- "those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal." the great barrington declaration is named after a town in western massachusetts which is home to the american institute for economic research, a koch brother funded think tank that sponsored the open letter. many other public health experts have expressed alarm over this call to embrace herd immunity. on wednesday, a group of doctors and scientists signed an opepen letterer in the lancet medical journal stating -- "the evidence is very clear -- controlling community spread of covid-19 is the best way to protect our societies and economies until safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics arrive within the coming months." the open letter is being called the john snow memorandum, named after the founder of modern epidemiology. today we host a debate on this contentious issue. joining us from ashford,

connecticut, is martin kulldorff, a professor of medicine at harvard university. ofof the three lead signers of e one great barrington declaration. he is a biostatistician, and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations. and joining us from boston is dr. abraar karan, an intererl medidicine doctor at t t brigham and women's hospital a and at harvard medical school. he has worked on the covid-19 public health response in massachusetts since february, as well as directly cared for covid-19 patients. we welcome you both to democracy now! the upsidekulldorff, is very controversial letter, what is being called the great barrington declaration. can you explain what it i is and why y you support what is called herd immunity? >> > thank you so much f for hag me on the showow. lockdown and the response

that we've done in the world for the pandemic is the worst assault on the working class in half a century. thateature of c covid-19 is whilile anybodody can be infnfe, there'e's a huge difference in risk by age. it is not just twofold or fivefoldld or tenfold, not even 100 fold. there is more than 1000 foldd differenence in risk b by age fr mortality of covid-19. so what we're doing now with the current stratategy that is in place since the beginning of the year, we're protecting lower risk students and professionals like bankers, scientists like meme, journaliststs like you whe putttting the burden on the working class who are forceceto work as a bus drivever, janitor, or working in the supermarket

even if they are old. so we're protecting lower risk privivileged professionals while putting the burden on the working class, including high risk workiking-class people who have to work, to build the immunity that eventually will protect everybody in the community. , you havebraar r karan been tweeting away, discussing the great barrington declaration. more importantly, broader than that, have definitely criticized herd immunity. talk about your major concernss and what y you think needs to be done. >> absolutely. thank you for having me. i i will startrt by saying tht'a bit of a false dichotomy when we talk about the options being eieither these e extre lockdowns versus j just tting the virus rip and havaving herd d munity. ifif we thinkk back to when we initially locked down, the

strategy foror doingng that was actually to o slow d down transmisission of cases s so thy didid not ovoverwhm ouour heth cacare systems and also to b bud up any actual epidememic respone whereby we could actctuayy have strong sururillance over where you u outbreaks for occururring, wherere we could actually still test,, trace, isolate new w cass as they were occurring. i think the way this is being framed is s problematic bebecaue neither timmy are actualllly strategies. on thehe one hand, lockdowns our emergegency backstops to stop transmission when it gets completely out of hand, and we saw that happen in the united states and saw other countries that actually dealt with this quickly and used testst,racing, isolating, and masking from the start t so they neverr had nor's outbreaks they could no longer control. on the other hand, you have this herd immununity y that typalalls you heard ththe who director generaral say, we're talking abt this in teterms of vaccinating people, not just exposing them to the disease but giving them a

vaccine that is not going to make themm sick or make them ned to be hospitalized suffer for the nsequences.. in t terms of my pararticular critiques, y you know, i takakee of people. i'i've seen so many covid paties sincnce the start of the epipid. if somomebody were to tell me we were going t to have any age-bad protection whehereby you j juste isolating peoeople w who are olr and letting other people runn free and get i infected, i will tellll you this, manyy of mymy t vulnlnerable patients live in crowded h households that are intergenerational l households d they are the support systems for older people. so when you have an visible spread of a virus like this, inevitablyly it will go from the first layer of younger people who may not get as sick k and it will m make its way to people wo will get more sick. those are the people we are seeing in the hospital. beyond that, i would say this, would we overly focus on who is dying from this, we are ignoring

the fact this is a novel respiratory pathogen even in younger people, even in middle-aged people with longer-term comorbidities morbidity affects such as long covid neurologic effects. just recently i've seen patients with this. also nothat aspect is being taken into account. beyond that, if you're talking about a herd immununity where you're letting 60% or so of this population get infected, or talking about 60% of 330 million people in this country. that is going to overwhelm our health care system absolutely. and it is going to make every thing much worse than it was even earlier on. i would dr. kulldorff, like youou to respond to what d. abraar karan said and also d do sosome of the criticisms that he been made of the barringtonn declararation, i including by vy .romominent figigures

the w judge rerector called it french and - -- the who director -- a anonothernch andnd epidemiologist h has said the force protection strategy you advovocate is not a plan butut i massacacre. k karan just t pointed out the key issue or thehe onlyy issue should not be mortality rates, which is whwhat the declararation focuseses on, givn the ever of instances that wewe have s seen among youngnger populations of orb entities s tt are long-lalasting, incluluding possibly permanenent damage to e heart and lungs, so-called long covid -- why is it ththe declaration only looks at mortality rates andnd not

possibly, certainly, lolong-term effects of the v virus, and possibly even permanent ones among youngeger populations? in combinination the three of you come i think that was s abot 20 things to respond to. i would like t to say wouldld ty catetegorize this declararation, there were a numberr of f errors that were made and maybe in different prograram tomorrow w e cann correct those mistakes. i would say one thing thatat is immununity -- a debate about immunity is nonsensical. herd immunity is scientifically established phenomenon that just exists. and every strategy that we use

will eventually lead to herd immunity. for us to discuss whether we should have herd immunity is like having two pilots in an airplane discussing whether they should use gravity as a strategy to get the airplane down on the ground. the airplane will eventually get down on the ground no matter what. the key thing is to minimize mortality. --want to minimize kelly mortality until this pandemic is over. of t the 20 ththings that you ad me about, m maybe you should fid one of them and i will rerespond to that onone. nermeen: why is it you have talked about mortalityates? why is it you're only looking at mortrtality rates anand not long-term morbidities like popossiblyly permanent d dage te lungs andd heart amongst y younr people and this phenomenon of long c covid of which there have been many reports? terms ofof all, in

long-term efeffects. we don''t know anything abououte long-t-term effects beyond one year, , for obviouss reasons, because it has not been around for that long.g. in t terms of l lungs, the e sih effect, that i is a common thing for many infeious diseases, including the annual influenza.. there have been no rereports tht i have seen ththat showsws longm effects of covid-19's anymore, and that the long-term effects of the influenza. , you said ildorff misspoke at the beginning.g. why don't t you cororrect what u think i said wrong. >> o one thing i is the debate t herd immunity. another one thing is the declaration is not arguing anybybody should go out and get infected.. car l like if you have with

traffic, you letet people drivea car. that doeoesn't mean y you let tm go andnd get killed in a car accident. we will let t young people and children go o to school, foror example, thatat is extremely imimportant for the studedents - for the for the --- physical health and mental health, which is a m major concern. we are not letting peoeople get infecteded. thatat is nonsense. nobody should deliberatately becomeme infected. but young people who are at very minimamal risk -- for children, the risk for covid is less than the annual ininfluenza, which typically killss between 200 and 1000 chihildren every year. so the risk to them is very, very low. thehem live their , to getet, to have proper physical and mental health.

but that does not mean we e are trying to pursue h herd immumuny strategy to get people to getet infected. thatat is very serious mischaracterizationn of this declaration, a and i think it ts very serious t that people are makingng those b because we neeo have an open debatete about thee things. it i is not jujust the three ofs who offer ththis, who signed ths have forrn, we also --mple e the former chair of ththe public school of healtltht of very prominent people, prominenent scientists have sigd this. and so on. so this is not a fringe opipinin until. go back a year onlnly, what we'e proposing is just thehe same thg as every country in n europe had in their pandemic response plans.

because e we knew there was goig to be a pandemic at some popoin, and d will be more after this o. we propose a a sick public healh principles -- basic pupublic health principles in europe. instead during this tragic experiment with lockdowns. and it was right to flatten the curve, to not overwhelm the hospitals. that was the correct strategy that everybody agrees with. within to suppress and eliminate the disease that cannot be eliminated, cannot be eradicated, is very misguided and leads to much higher mortality than should have been if you done f focused protection strategy i instead. i will l needaran, to respond to what d dr. kulldof said when he said earlier about the disproportionate impact of ththe lockdown from the policies

that have been pursusued on thte working class and protecting the relatively privileged whwhile compromimising the well-being of ththe workining class who have n forced to work even through these locockdowns. and in particular, you have worked i in asia as welell a asn america and africa.a. the effect there h has been far more devastatating than here orn europe, wiwith several recent reports wararning of hundreds of millions of people bebeing pushd into povoverty, potetentially as oxfam reported, up to 12,000 , aple starving a day widespread crisis s in education for hundreds of millions of chilildren who potentiallyly, because e they don't have access to home educacation, could indue generational crisis s in educatn in many of these countries. hohow is it these impacts can be

vulnerarable populationons all acrossss the d byby doing something other than lockckdowns in countriries thate resource-poor and can't necessarily afford alternrnative strategies? >> absolutely. us hasas foror so many off been around thee fact ththe strategigies have left behin s e of the m most poor and vulnerle people in our society. ththis is s not aa surprise.e. this happened before the pandemic. we have so much ineqequity. the focus of the response has to be on protecting the most honorable. if you think back to our response in the united states in may, once we realize there was a disproportionate impact on people off color, front liline workers who lived in crowded housing, who were not able to stay home while the rest of us were able to, what we should have done is protect these

populations, making sure they ,ad access to the ppe they need access to safer working conditions. nobody is arguing with that at all. when we characteterize certain countries -- you mentioned i woworked in sub-sahararan afrir. a lot of those countriries are mischaracterizized in the senene ththere is ann assumptption thtt to be able to handl pandemics or respond to pandemics. some o of these countries are te experts well beyond what we are in the united states in terms of how to utililize theundamentalas of epidemic response -- testing, tracing, isolating, wearing masks. i had a colleague who was in rwanda earlier this year and said when he landed in the airport, they checked his symptoms, had exactly the seat he sat in on the plane, exactlyy whwhere he would b be s staying, checked his temperature, and mamajor there were going to folw out any sort of cases that happened so they could trace and isolate people. he sat on the other hand when he came back to the u.s., he walked

right inin and n nobody asked a single question and there he went. i would to address something dr. kulldorff said, which is that it is silly to not talk about herd immunity. well, nobody is s saying we ar't talking ababout herd immunity.y. we arere talking about herd immuninity with a vaccccine. we have been pusushing for t tot a vaccine. i knowow dr. kulldorffff on othr podcast have mentiononed a v vae is an important part of a a strategy to control ththe epidememic. itit is not going to be a silvlr bullllet. we are not going to likely elelimine covid, but we need d o get it to low levelsls. so many countries s have proven there are ways to dodo this whwn yoyou stick to the finametals of epidemicic response. why isis it in our country we ae pushing toward makining an excue to not do that work and instead using a a theoreretical strateg, which h i think pragmatically jt won't work basesed on all of the patients i have talked to. for us, t this isis the real de.

i have talked to people whwho he been infnfected with covid, whoo infectcted family members in thr home becausese of f their living conditions, and were e lled by inequity, by an incompetence to the response. amy: let's talk about the incompetence to the response. dr. kulldorff, i was wondering if you could describe the meeting you had with alex azar, the head of health and human services, when you went to lay out the herd immununity -- your herd immunity push? this is what i wanted to ask. you have laid this out as lockdown, which we all agree has horrific effects from massive joblessness, tens of millions of people out of work, the psychological effects of all of this, poverty, to name a few. to let it rip. you don't have a lockdown, just let it go through because those effects are less bad, you say.

did you argue to azar for him to argue to the president that talking about the response of the u.s., the lack of tests, the lack of masks, first and foremost protect everyone would be, as we often look at europe -- why look at europe? what about asia? what about taiwan? singapore? china? vietnam? how they have contained the virus with same public health measures that are supported by the vast majority of public health professionals? a again, your characterizationn claiming thihis is a a push ford immunity or to let things rip througugh society. that is the very o opposite of e great barrington declaration. amy: so explain. are threeally there mamajor strategegies one can us. one can n do n nothing -- anandt

is very, very bad.d. becausee if we do nothing, we ae going g to have some you p peope get infected. with all people infected, some are going to die and we will have high mortality. a study that protects everybody equally respspected of age, we'e're pushing thehe pandc fort in time. eventually, people a are still e toto be affected. some old smmmm people will get infected, , high mortality.. on the other hand, if we do focus protection, which is what the great arrington declaration -- great barrington decoration proposes, focusing on the the-risk elderly instead of privilege members of society, some of which are old and some on young, if we focus high-risk elderly high-risk group while young people give

their lives, we will have fewer older people getting infected and more younger people getting infected. it will also shorten the time of the pandemic so that older will make it- it easier for older people to protect themselves because they will self-isolate for number of month instead of now more than a year. and if we do that, then we will have lower mortality because there will be fewer of the older people getting infected. talken: could you specifically, because of c coure the declaration advocates opening schools, what we know about the infection rate of children and thehe likelihood tt children, if they go to school, could come h home and infect thr parents? and the second quesestion is, wt dodo we knowbout t the percentae of people who o have an infeion

who develop serious s symptoms? not necessarily dieie from the infection, but develop s serious infectionsns versus those who rerema either asymptomatitic or develop light symptoms? the second question, most young people are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic only. old people, this is a major danger to them. especially for mortality. what we know about children. we know a lot about children. if you think like scientists, we have to see what happens if schools are open during the pandemic. there is only one country in the western world, major country who kept schools open during the height of the pandemic in the spring, and that was sweden. if you want to answer that question, which of sweden. sweden kept childcare and 15ools open from ages one to

the pandemic. childrene 1.8 million this age group. the spring and early summer, there were zero children who thisfrom covid-19 among 1.8 million. therere were handful, thenen, dn or so i see you and some hospitalizations. but for children, this is very dangerous -- this is not a veryy dadangerous thing g compared toe annunual influenza because much more children every year. they also looked at the teachers. because maybe the children will infect the teachers. they found that teachers have the same risk of covid as the profession. some other professionals worked at home, it had lower risk than those other professions who are actually on-site. risk of children

infecting adults is very small. that has also been shown through genetic studies from iceland where they looked at the genetics of the virus to see how it spread -- whether it spreads from appeared to the child, the child to the parent. most transmission was from the parent and the child. amy: were going to gotta break -- >> there''s no pubublic health reasonon to keep schools close. they should all be open for in-person teachingng. same withh uniniversities. ifif childldren are sicick, stat home. older teachehers, if they are in their 60's, theyey are at t higr risk. they shoululd work from home eieither by dog online t teachig or helpingther teachers with exams, essays, homework, things like that. amy: i want to ask about a report from sky news and the hill. you have white h house officials

promoting herd immunity declaration signed by fake names. report found last week -- sky news found dozens of fake names have signed the document including dr. ip freely, dr. person victim, dr. johnny bananas. another signatory called himself dr. harold shipman. was, man named shipman arrested after killing more that 200 of his p patients. what c can youou say about this? >> i'm a simple scientist. i've a question for you. we have half a milillion peoeope who find t this, including thousands of prominenent mededil scientist. we also show for the fun of it thatat johnny bananas had done this, clclearly being g the fake name, whicich we are removing. why are you asking about johnny bananas instead of many of t the thousands of v very promiminent scientists have signed the

declaration? i'm a simplple scientntist, so s is something with the mediaia, obviously you know more about that i, but why is that? amy: is looking at the list of the signatories. dr., put the question to because the suggestion here is that whether dr. kulldorff's declaration represents the majority view and this country. and specifically, this issue of what we absolutely no would save tens of thousands of lives in this country -- masks and tests. and the fact they are not available freely all over this country, hundreds of millions of can you address this issue of what would save lives until there is a vaccine that would create herd immunity, and in particular, talk about children? dr. kulldorff singhgh schools

should remain n open. bubut what w we know about chiln today? >> absolutely. p psicians,oror many nurses, frontline healalth caree providerers, infectious disease epidemiologigist, scientists, we are not here to try to push forward our agendas. we are here to l listen to the science and is a peoplple's liv. sck to ththe fundamentatals of epidemic response was to t testing, tracing, isolalating, masking better ventilation. and listening to the science. the science is appoiointing to s haviving verery little spread in schools,hen as y y know, there's a tradede-off to everythihing we e do. there e are costs to keeping kis out of schooool. we must adapapt to what the scscience shows. but the underlrlng fundamementas are ththings we just have not bn doing despite knowing we need to be doi this. you have listed t that. we need to havee masks allll stp we need to havave ppe.

-- we needed to have masks. we need to havee p ppe from front-line wororkers as w we were into winter, and te cdc has acknonowledgeged aerosol spread, we need toto have bebetr rerelations s and space. wewe need to stick to testing ad increasingng testing and using a more unique anand innonovative . people talked aboutry to scscale r rapidse types off teststs, in gin testiting positivive peoe have talked about smarte tracacing. many are moving into digital tracing to helelp us get more ququick and efficient inin termf fifiguring out w who iinfefected notifying people that neneed to quaranti a and get tting quicklkly. ththese are e things that other countrieies had already been dog and that we were slower adapt but we are moving totoward d dog that. i ththink k would we m move awam putttting in the work and insted or focused on silver r bullets r on strategies that are justst n ideal and d have a lot of cost - costs we cannot evenen identify fully y right now -- we're going

toto head d into troublele. so those are my thoughtsts on i. and a recentkaranan, article, said d what is needed s in a epidemiological autopsy for all covid cases, suggesting the focus should be on detectcting d stopping enough tranansmission chains. first of alall, could r resesndo the earlier question about children and whether t they are sasafe frorom the virus and cano to school or that they don't spread either of thosese things with their true? and also the fact that some studies on this question of transmissionon, studies have shn most people don't seemem to transmit the v vus and h holy a small perercentage -- only y a l percentage are responsible for all infections. what do we know ababout that study, thosese studies? do you thinkhat is the case om what you'u've seen? amy: we haveve less than a a mi.

>> a absolututely. this is something i've talkedd about, figurining out t how transmission is continuing to happen and what we can do is use genomic sequencncing to figure t where peoeople may have gotten infected. in t case of s schools, letet's y you see a l lot of f sick kids are gegeing g infected b but thy may not be infecting onene anothe you may say there's not a a lotf transmsmission happenining witin the school. the benefit ofof schools may outweigh the cost. sesecondly, the spread of covid9 is through clusts. if that t is the c case, we n no stop t tse clusters from happening. certaicountrieies like japan haveve focused on that. they have avoid crorowds, avoidd close contact, , avoid d osed spaces. if we do that, we can stop these large super r spreadg evevents d drive the epidemic into managegeable levevels and do not contntinue t to search and crere epidemics we then hahave to thik ababout ways to stop drasticall, such as lockdowns. those will be my thoughts to those two questions. amy: thank you both for being with us.

thanksgiving is coming up. dr. fauci has warned people should not gather from all of the country with their families ,nside in close community fearing for the for the spread of the v virus goioing back to e community's wherever they live and spreading it further. abraar karan, thank you for being with us, and thank you so much to martin kulldorff, professor of medicine at harvard university, speaeaking to us frm connecticut. when we come back, excerpts of the senate confirmation hearing for amy coney barrett. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: "4th of july" performed live by sufjan stevens. i and amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. we spend the rest of the hour -- we spend now the rest of this time looking at the senate confirmation hearing in the senate judiciary committee, which is reconvening today for the final hearing for president trump's supreme court nominee amy coney barrett, a right-wing judge who once clerked for antonin scalia. if confirmed, she will give conservatives a 6-3 majority. judge barrett faced eight hours of questions wednesday after marathon 11-hour hearing tuesday, as republicans race to confirm her before the election. we end today's show with some of the key exchanges from wednesday's hearing, such as this one between democratic senator kamala harris, joe biden's running mate, when judge

barrett refused to say if she thinks climate change is happening. sen. harris: climate change, as many havee said, is an existential threat and the efeffects arare all around us.s. to accept covid-d-19 is infectious? acceptrrett: yes, i do covid-19 is infectious. that is something of which i feel we could say you t take jujudicial notice of, yes. sen. harris: do accept smoking causes cancer? hon. barrett: i'm not surere whe you're going with this. sen. harris: you can answer. yes or no. hon. barrett: yes, every package of sigrist once smoking causes cancer.. sen. harris: doo you believe climate change is happening anad threatening the air we breathe and the water we drink? again, ietttt: senator, was wondering where you are going with us. you have asked if there is a questions that are completely uncontroversial like covid-19 is

infectious, whether smoking causes cancer, and then trying to analogize that soliciting an on me that is very dutch opinion from me that is on a very contentious matter of public debate. i will not do that. i will not express a view a matter of public policy, especially one that is politically controversial because that is inconsiststent wiwith the judicial l role as it entioned. amy: judge barrett has repeatedly to answer questions about her views on abortion n ad the fufuture of roe v. wade despite her public record opposing reproductive rights. judge barrett also repeatedly dodged questions on the supreme court's obergefell v. hodges ruling, which said same-sex couples could not be denied the right to marry. this is her exchange with democratic senatator richard blumenthal of connecticut. sen. blumenthal: correctly decided obergefell v. hodges? hon. barrett: every time he

asked me whether case was answer correct there not comply cannot suggest agreement or disagreement with precedents of the supreme court. all of the precedents by me as a seventh circuit judge w were duy confirmed i would be responsisie for a plan allow starting -- blumenthal: think of how you would feel as a gay or lesbian american to hear that you can't answer whether the government can make it a crime for them to have that relationship, , whether the government can enable people who are happily married to continue that relationship. think of how you would feel. hon. b barrett: you are implying and place as they ought to cast obergefell.errule

you are pushing me to try to violate the judicial canons of ethics and offer advisory opinions, and i won't do that. sen. blumenthal: brown versus board of education. i would like to clarify the point. hon. barrett: as i said to senator graham when he asked me that question, i have spoken on thatat before an election that i give -- sen. blumenthal: as you sit here, and correctly decided? hon. barrett: correctly decided, yes, i've said that. sen. blumenthal: let asking about the living case. do you think that was cocorrecty decideded? hon. barrett: loving followss directlyly from brbrown. brown isis correctly decided, loving as well. it was correctly decided. amy: that was richard blumenthal of connecticut ushering judge amy coney barrett.

we're going to turn right now to an unusual moment which was the north carolina senator thom tillis in a hotly contested race questioning amy coney barrett. sen. tillis: i want to make sure i heard you right and your response to other questions, feel very strongly that every accessn should have safe to the vote. i hope every registered voter in this country but on novembmber . that may be a stretch goal, but you agree with that? hon. barrett: o of course, yes. amy: for the record, election day is november 3, not november 11. and then we turn to new jersey democratic senator cory booker questioning judge barrett about her views on race. we haveker: clearly, been grappling as a nation with a lot of these issues. it is part of our long-standing history. you cannot divorce the role of

judges in our history over these some 200 years and how race has been a persistent part of the national narrative, grappling with deep issues of bigotry and bias, overt as well as the vices that exist. loss-of-lifeof the of african-americans at the hands of officers has brought this morn to public concern.n. more into public concern. i was asking specifically any books yoyou can name that you've read on the subject were law review articles from anything specifically right outside the sentencing? hon. barrett: i was say what i've learned about it has mostly been in conversations with people. at notre dame come as many other universities, it is a topic of conversation in classrooms but not something i can say, yes, i've done research on this and read --

writtenker: you have here about it. to meet that speaks -- it makes me wonder when i -- i want to talk you about your preparedness and priorities, taking the highest office in the judicial world that deals with such long-standing issues of race and in a way that affects the totality of the lives of americans. amy: that was senator booker questioning judge barrett. republican s senator ben sasse asked judge barrett to name the five freedoms outlined under the first amendment. she can name four. sen. sasse: what are the five freedoms of the first amendment? hon. barrett: speech, religion, -- speech,mbly press, religion, similar. what am i missing? sen. sasse: coat redress. and go we will talk more about these hearings on front is

broadcast. you can go to democracynow.org to watch the live-streamed of today's final day of the hearing and all of the senate confirmation hearings for judge amy coney barrett. that does it for our broadcast. [captioning made possible by democracy now!] xxxxxxdñdñ

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