08/12/21 08/12/21 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> current trajectory, we could pass 300 million reported cases early next year. amy: as the highly contagious delta variant spreads the globe, we will spend the hour looking at the pandemic in some of the

world's hardest hit areas. we will begin in india and then go to indonesia countries , two desperately needing more vaccines. we end up back here in the united states, where vaccines are a plenty but millions are refusing to take them despite a search in infections and deaths. >> we are seeing a pandemic of the unvaccinated. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the world health organization is warning unless nations act urgently to slow the spread of coronavirus, the world could log another 100 million coronavirus infections by the end of 2021. who director-general tedros adhanom ghebreyesus said wednesday noted the number of confirmed cases worldwide

recently passed 200 million. >> we know the real number of cases is much higher. as i said recently, whether we reach 300 million and how fast we get there depends on all of us. amy: more than 200 prominent doctors, scientists, public health officials, and civil society groups have signed an open letter calling on the biden administration to adopt a wartime footing to massively increase the availability of mrna vaccines around the world. the scientists warn -- "without urgent and immediate scale up of vaccine production and distribution, millions more will be infected and die." in the united states, the centers for disease control is recommending that pregnant people get vaccinated against covid-19. the cdc said wednesday it found no evidence the vaccines increased the risk of miscarriage.

meanwhile, the food and drug administration is poised to authorize a third dose of vaccine for people with weakened immune systems, such as cancer patients and those who have undergone organ transplants. the world health organization recently urged wealthy nations not to authorize booster doses until 10% of people in every country have had access to a vaccine. florida's health department has asked the federal government to ship 300 ventilators, as hospitals are overrun with covid patients in one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the wod. florida republican governor ron desantis continues to resist -- prohibit mask mandates and other public health measures. in tennessee, angry anti-mask protesters packed a school district meeting in suburban nashville tuesday night as officials reinstated a mask mandate for elementary school students. video that's gone viral shows

unmasked protesters shouting and threatening people after the meeting, including public health officials who testified in favor of masks. >> we know who you are. you can leave but we know who you are. we can find you. we know who you are. amy: the protesters threatened people inside and outside the meeting as they were in their cars. this week, tunis republican governor refused to rule out a ban on mask mandates. california has become the first state to require all k-12 teachers and staff be vaccinated against covid 19 or undergo weekly testing. governor gavin newsom said the border will apply to both public and private schools in california. >> we think this is the right thing to do and we think this is a step -- is a sustainable way

of keeping our schools address the number one anxiety that parents like myself have -- i have four young children -- knowing the schools are doing everything in their power to keep our kids safe. amy: coronavirases connue to rise nationwe with t was porting average of 125 ousand dai infectis. will ha much mo on the paemic lat in the oadcast. we virginisenator e manchisaid wedsday he s seriouconcernsbout the3.5 trlion budt resoluon plan ssed by demoats justours earlr. althouanchinoted to en debate othe meure, he sa represes irrespsible lels of spding. arizona senator kyrsten sinema also expressed similar reservations. texas senator ted cruz blocked consideration of three bills on voting rights and electoral integrity wednesday, including the for the people act. the moverompted ting rigs groups a other pgressiveto

--nd others to deman democratand joe den moveo abolh the fibuster ocome upith a pl to comb repuican obstructionm and prott ting rigs. in clima news, aeather station in sicily recorded a high temperature of 48.8 degrees celsius wednesday. that's 120 degrees fahrenheit, an all-time record forurope. across the strait of sicily, tunisia's capital tunis logged a record temperature of 49 degrees celsius. the heat wave has kicked off hundreds of wildfires across north africa and southern europe. in turkey, at least six people were killed after flooding and mudslides from torrential rains swept away cars, washed out bridges, and left people stranded on rooftops. the flooding on turkey's northern coast came as intense heat and drought in southern turkey has fueled over 200 wildfires. in the united states, the pacific northwest faces another major heatwave, with three days

of triple-digit temperatures expected in portnd. temperatures in western oregon could hit 25 degrees above normal. a "new york times" investigation found the record-shattering heatwave that hit oregon and washington in june may have led to about 600 deaths, three times official estimates of the death toll. despite the unfolding climate disasters, the biden administration urged opec to wednesday pump more oil to combat high fuel costs and rising inflation in the united states. just three weeks ago, the oil-producing cartel agreed to increase oil production by 400,000 rrels per day. in afghanistan, the taliban has taken control of the city of ghazni, the tenth provincial capital to fall to the taliban in under a week.

"the washington post" reports u.s. intelligence officials are predicting kabul could fall to the taliban within one to three months. this week the biden administration launched a last-ditch effort to convince the taliban it would face international condemnation if it takes all of afghanistan by force. in a setback for wikileaks founder julian assange, a british judge ruled to allow the u.s. to widen the scope of its argument as it appeals the january decision to block assange's extradition. the united states argued the judge who blocked the extradition on the grounds that assange was a suicide risk did not sufficient take in account expert evidence that contradicted this finding. the full appeal hearing is scheduled for the end of october. assange faces up to 175 years behind bars under the espionage act for publishing classified

documents exposing u.s. war crimes. julian assange's partner stella moris spoke wednesday outside the london courthouse. >> for every day this colossal injustice is allowed to continue, julian's situation grows increasingly desperate. he wants the case against the u.s. government seven months ago, yet he remains in belmarsh person. what is this if not punishment? amy: in mexico, a prominent news took to the airwaves to stand up to one of the country's most powerful drug cartels. jalisco new generation cartel posted a video online in which they directly threatened milenio tv anchor azucena uresti, who regularly reports on cartel violence and organized crime. mexican president andres manuel lopez obrador has vowed to otect urti.

she addressed the threats during her broadcast monday night. >> i have joined the federal system protection from the government. our work will continue to be based on the truth and with the intention of providing information on the reality of a country like ours. amy: the u.n. refugee agency has condemned the ongoing u.s. policy of expelling central american asylum seekers to southern mexico, where they face significant dangers. the biden administration has continued to carry out the trump-era policy, which cites the pandemic as justification for the expulsions. mexican authorities, meanwhile, have removed hundreds of these asylum seekers, dropping them into a remote part of guatemala with no resources or any way to return to their home countries of origin. this is gerson flores, a honduran asylum seeker whoas turned around at the u.s. border . >> this is really sad.

the americans said nothing. we want to president biden to greatest illegal opportunity to stay in the unitedtates even if they put us in shackles. i want to support my family. amy: canada has sold billions of dollars of weapons to the kingdom of saudi arabia in violation of the arms trade treaty, an international agement it fmally join in 19. that's according to a new report by amnesty iernationalnd project ploughshares, which accuses canadian officials of cherry-picking through evidence of saudi war crimes in order to paint the weapons saleas compliant th internaonal law. researchers say weapons soldy canadao saudi aria may have been diverted for use in yemen. since 2014, the saudi-led, u.s. backed war has killed about a quarter of a million people, while devastating yemen's infrastructure and setti off a humanitarian catastrophe.

the world food program says more than 16 million yemenis are food insecure, with pockets of famine persisting. early this morning, activists with the fang collective blockaded the entrances to the raytheon facility in portsmouth, rhode island. the group was protesting weapon sales to saudi arabia and israel, and raytheon's involvement in the militarization of u.s. immigration policy and the u.s.-mexico border. among other things, raytheon missiles have been linked to the killing of civilians in yemen. and here in new york, lieutenant governor kathy hogle distanced herself from disgraced governor andrew cuomo. cuomo announced his resignation tuesday after new york attorney general james reported he sexually harassed at least 11 women. kathy hogle a set to replace cuomo on august 24, becoming new

york's first female governor. >> the governor and i have not been close, physically or otherwise, in terms of much time. at the end of my term, whenever it ends, no one will ever describe my administration as a toxic work environment. amy: and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman in new york, with nermeen shaikh. hi, nermeen. nermeen: hi, amy. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. the world health organization is warning over 100 million more people will be infected with covid-19 by early next year as the delta variant continues to rapidly spread. who director general tedros adhanom ghebreyesus spoke on wednesday. >> cases and deaths continue to rise. last week the 200 million case

of covid-19 was reported to who, just six months after the world has the 100 million reported cases. and we know the real number of cases is much higher. as i said recently, whether we reach 300 million and how fast we get there depends on all of us. at the current trajectory, we could pass 300 million reported cases early next year. amy: today we spend the rest of the hour looking at the pandemic in three of the hardest hit countries -- the united states, indonesia, and india. over the past four weeks, the three countries have accounted for over a quarter of all covid cases recorded in the world. we begin in india with the death toll is reported to be around 420 9000, but many researchers

believe it is at least five times higher. india suffered a devastating wave of infections in april and we go now to new delhi, where we may. are joined by barkha dutt. she is an award-winning indian television journalist and author. author of "this unquiet land: stories from india's fault lines." she is an opinion columnist with "the hindustan times" and "the washington post." her latest piece for "the post" is headlined "as an indian, i am enraged by america's refusal to set vaccine mandates." her father died of covid in april. first of all, our condolences on the death of your father. can you talk about what happened to your father -in fact, he had gotten one jab, or shot, of the two shots? and how you feel about the level of resistance in hesitancy

around vaccines in the united states, how you connect the two? >> thank you, amy. my father had one jab and he was scduled to have the second vacce the week he tested potive and eventually had to be hpitalized. i think like many daughters in india today, i am haunted by the "what if?" the truth is he got vaccine he got a vacce as soon as he could. i was also somewhat enraged with my own government [inaudible] not having moved quickly enough in order to cure and manufacture more vaccines. that said, when we watch what is happening in the u.s., is

astounding that people who have access to vaccines are choosing not to get jabbed. it is anti-science, it is first world white privilege. the crisis in my coury is that we do not have enough vaccines. otherwise our vaccination program has been quite a smooth rollout. people are waiting to get a vaccine and our problem is that are not enough vaccines to go around. nermeen: the modi administration has pledged to have every adult vaccinated by the end of the year. how likely is that and what needs to happen in order to make sure areufficient vaccines? >> just to give the audience some context, india otherwise manufactures 60% of the worlds

vaccines. we have experience with mass immunization programs, which is why -- with the vaccines we have [indiscernible] we simply do not have enough vaines to go around. to give yothe numbers, where vaccinatg on a good day about 4 million a day. need to be vaccinating 9 millioto meet the target you just mentioned set by the government itself, that is all adult vaccinated by the end of the ye. we cannot do that unless we have an explosion of vaccines in either the production pipeline or thearket. at the moment, rich countries, westercountrie havin a sense captured most ofhe vaccines. they have vaccines isurplus. and if their own citizens are not wendy's the vaccines, they

need to send them to vaccines who need them more. nermeen: youeported extensively from all across india about the impact the pandemic has been having and also the urgencyf getting vaccinated. can you explain what you've have en and in particular the impacts on the poor as oxygen supplies have run out? you talked about people lining up on the streets and dying on the streets waiting for oxygen. also increased numbers of people now below the poverty lin could you talk about that? >> it is important to say we might be in what some call the next storm. what we have emerged from is a nightmare like one i have never lived through in my adult life. we were told this virus is a grt equalizer.

there could be no bigger lie. the first wave of the pandemic, we saw millions of poor indians having to leave the citiesnd walk -- walk back to the villages during the lockdown because india decided to stop public tnsport in a complete panic when covid-19 first hit us. i documented that journey. the humanitarian catastrophe was significantly greater than the medical emergency. in the second wave, because of course there would not be a second wave once again if the poor work disproportionately ad. most of the families i met had to sell maybe the only piece of land they had just to be able to pay the exorbitant fees at hospitals that then made them sign consent forms which basically i called modern-day death warrants because is that

if their loved ones were to die because there was not enough oxygen in the hospital, there would be no legal liability the hospital would have to face. people dying on the streets. dying because they could not get a bed or could not get access to oxygen. we must recognize, and now we are in the next phase where you are seeing daily wage workers are not able to pay rent, millions of poor children fall out the education system schools are closed and a large part of the country. what we talked about covid, we must stop saying that virus is a great equalizer because it is anything but. amy: barkha dutt, and u.s., there is discussion of the

booster shot. pregnant women are now recommended to have the shot and looks like children will be next, under 12. "the wall street journal" read what it india is looking to access pfizer, moderna, johnson & johnson. can you explain what the impediments are to reaching an agreement with these foreign companies to be able to get the mrna vaccine in india and what it means that there so proprietary around the recipes, around their formulas? >> great question. first, advocating lifting of the impediments of getting these vaccines to us as soon a possible, in pticular thmrna vaccine tested for children and we know them to be safe. like i mentioned, we're probably the only country in the world where schools have been close

for more tn 500 da. 11% of indians have access to computer. for millions of children, that means no education at all. in particular, girls. onsmarthone, a means the boy will get the phone and not the girl and the girls are being shed into child -- i'm explaining this to explain why e mrna vaccine is so important for countries like mine. the impediment is the government is refusing to basically sign off and waiver of the liability of these companies -- the argument is that liability waiver is not being provided to indian manufacturers. some are saying give it to everybody, but unfortunately, we

are seeing protracted negotiation over this indemnity clause and it is unfortunate because i do not think we have the time to be this bureaucratic and slow-moving about it. nermeen: the last iss of the medical debts that millions of indians have accrued as they have treated people suffering from covid, could you talk about that and the state of hospitals and clinics now dealing with covid patients? >> r the point at wch we are, you're sitting at the precipice of the third wave. we do not know the nature of what it will be. we are seeing localized waves in our cotry right now. what i mean is instead of there being this national sort of catastrophe, we are seeing this localized as the maximumumber of cases coming from specific

states. in terms of the debt, i wanto make the point, again, we do not know a few things. persally, reporting makes it evident to me and i think it is evident to everyone now our dead is severely undercounted. we have seen mass graves of those suspected to be from covid patients. i personally documented five such mass graves myself. we have seen the underreporting of graveyards. it is imrtant to say we are country were 1300 people use died of tuberculosis. we are seeing a fall in the

registration of those cases, which means millions are not getting access to screenings, to hospitalization for diseases other than covid. in my opinion, they're part of thcasualtyigures of is pandemic and should be counted as such. but we have no formal official cumentation of what these fidelity's b. -- fatalities be. there are warning about the third wave. no one knows when the third wave comes. at the moment, the hospitals have not seen a kind of craziness we saw let's say the month of may, so fingers crossed. desperately need or vaccines as so many americans are refusing to take. amy: dr. barkha dutt, thank you so much. award-winning indian television

journalist and author, founding editor of the independent digital news source mojo story. she is an opinion columnist with "the washington post." we will link to her latest piece "as an indian, i am enraged by america's refusal to set vaccine mandates." coming up, we go to indonesia, where the death toll has topped 100,000 with more than half of the deaths occurring in the past two months. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now! i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. we continue our covege of the pandemic and turn to indonesia, which has become the epicenter of the pandemic in asia. over the past 28 days, indonesia

has recorded 43,000 deaths. that's more than anywhere else in the world. this brings indonesia's overall death toll to over 112,000, though public health experts say the true death toll is likely many times higher. more than half of the deaths have occurred in the past two months as the delta variant overwhelmed hospitals across indonesia. we are joined by two guests. sana jaffrey recently wrote an article headlined "how the global vaccine divide is fueling indonesia's coronavirus catastrophe." it was published by carnegie endowment for international peace where she serves as a fellow. and we're joined by the indonesian epidemiologist dr. dicky budiman, who is at griffith university in australia. let's begin with sana jaffrey.

let's begin with the headline of your peace "how the global , vaccine divide is fueling indonesia's coronavirus catastrophe." explain. >> the last year, more than year, epidemiologists have been debating options. one is saving economy by not imposing the lockdowns or [indiscernible] laborers suffer as a result. this is a very heated debate. it has been going on for a long time. it is unfair we are still stuck in this discussion when in western countries people are getting vaccinated or choosing not to get vaccinated despite there is a flood of supply and

indonesia is not able to break out of the trap of these two options because there is not enough of the vaccines in the country, not because they don't want it but because they are unable to access it even if they want to purchase it. nermeen: explain what you think needs to be done to expand vaccine access in indonesia. >> globally, people are given the condition and indonesia and [indiscernible] often tell them the best thing you can send as a letter to your congressman and tell them they need to make sure the surplus guy 26 million doses about to expire, collect them and send them to countries like indonesia

that could use them right away. secondly, right to your lawmakers to waiver a patent that could make production available technology transfer available to countries who can make their own vaccines and increase global supply all over the world. those are the two things that need to happen. nermeen: dicky budim, i would like to bring into the conversation. could you respond and talk about what you think needs to be done to expand vaccine access? and also this question, predicted more than a year ago that indonesia would become an epicenter of the pandemic. explain how and why. >> first, about the prediction. i was predicting early march 2020 when not only indonesia but also -- practice for almost 20

years. the se of the assumption, the health infrastructure. quite similar. [indiscernible] detect early cases with testing since the beginning of the pandemic. the other thing, the health system and how the leadership nie level of the government will be influenced of the production.

as we know indonesia has proper testing, prediction epicenter early july already become -- covid-19. the problem still, the protesting. even under this condition, already become the epicenter in asia. about the vaccination program. i always remind the government the vaccine is not the only solution for the pandemic. especially with dealing with the delta variant, we have to combine strategies. the first would be in testing and detecti.

case detection is very important. in indonesia we call it testing, testing -- of course, isolation. social distancing, masks. and then vaccition. the problems -- i criticize the government -- compared to others, the vaccination program and indonesia is much, much better. compared to testing and intervention. again, due to our huge population and many island and remote island and the stop of the infection is not enough. the problem is we are now facing the delta variant. we know -- even now sinopharm

and astrazeneca. we compare with the messenger rna. so this point we have to combine those three strategies to effectively -- otherwise, the number of mortality will be increasing in the middle of this vaccination program. amy: dr. dicky budiman, you mention the chinese vaccines. they're clearly not as effective but they got there early, which was extremely significant. it does bestow some immunity. but doctors and nurses, can you talk about the death toll among them and what it would mean to supplement with these mrna vaccines like pfizer and moderna

, the significance of this, the access the indonesian government has to these vaccines and we asked the same question to our guest in india, what it would mean if these waivers were put in that change the calculation of how indonesian, indian companies can start to produce these vaccines in bulk? >> i have to fairly say it at a certain level, the sinopharm there's the protection regarding even the delta variant, but -- the meaning of less effective does not mean not effective. health-care workers, we can still find many of them are protected and even mild

symptomatic when they get the delta variant. of course, if we compare this messenger rna, pfizer and moderna has bigger protection in the new variant. but the problem with the messenger rna for indonesia, let's say, because not really user-friendly list of listed only for the big cities -- user-friendly. plus i, for the big cities. the rest of indonesia, it is very difficult to use this kind of platform. that's why the tech knowledge he -- the technology china used is user-friendly for unless

developing country like indonesia. the problem now is how we can make [indiscernible] we could make sure it is appropriate and easy to use for developing country like indonesia. that is another challenge for the messenger rna. of course, we can have another. let's say we can at least -- big city and -- advise the government to have and use the messenger rna for a boter for the health care worker because, again, we have

to use the most effective one to protect the most vulnerable one. that is my advice. again, the problem is for the rest of indonesia, the infrastructure still becomes our main problem. in my opinion, we have to combine. vaccine technology and the most friendly use one. nermeen: sana jaffrey, you have written about this, the relative collapse of the indonesian health care system in dealing with covid patients. can you talk about what patients have been doing, where they have been accessing health care? and like we heard about india

and many countries in the world, the increasing numbers of poor people in indonesia who have been pulled into poverty because of the pandemic and lockdown and so on? >> yes. i was listing to your previous guess talk about her father. -- i was listing to your previous guest talked about her father. [indiscernible] the various spreading to far more remote and more vulnerable. i know personally my family is struggling to find oxygen tanks in a remote mining town where

the oxygen ran out over the weekend was up for two days, people watched their loved ones struggle and many did not make it stop these are the stories coming out now and coming out late because areas are far behind the big cities in terms of how to report numbers. there's no way indonesia could have completely avoided this kind of scenario with the delta variant. i think you also mentioned, with some precautionary measures, especially -- the impact of this kind of pandemic could have been contained. it's a pretty widespread health system in the form of community health centers that serve as the first site of testing and also triage and quarantining are

having people find out if there quarantine or not and then referring them to hospitals. this could have been managed a lot better. in terms of trying to save the economy, the government was hesitated from the beginning. it has not done well. 1.6 million people have lost their jobs. almost 39 people have been pushed below the poverty line. -- almost 3 million people have been pushed below the poverty line. we're seeing the worst of both worlds. nermeen: could you also talked about the impact of the pandemic on children, which is not

something that has been so prevalent in other parts of the world, although it has been in some parts, including brazil, why are children being so badly affected? how is that understood? now it is reported that 12.5% of cases in indonesia are among children. >> i would refer this question to dicky. i would say in terms of the schools closed [indiscernible] ey do not have access to technology to coect them online. as why it is affecting children more, i would refer to the expert on the show, which is dicky budiman.

amy: dr. dicky budiman had to go, but i want to thank you, sana jaffrey,. our condolences on the death of your father. we will link to your article "how the global vaccine divide is fueling indonesia's coronavirus catastrophe." we want to thank dr. dicky budiman, indonesian epidemiologist at griffith university in straley a. coming up, historian john berry joins us, author of "the great influenza: the story of the deadliest pandemic in history." what the history tells us about the delta variant and the variants that will follow. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now! i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. coronavirus cases continue to rise here in the united states where there are now an average of 125,000 daily infections with cases soaring in areas with low vaccination rates. we're joined now by john barry, professor at the tulane university school of public health and tropical medicine. he's the author of "the great influenza: the story of the deadliest pandemic in history." his latest piece for "the washington post" is headlined "what history tells us about the delta variant -- and the variants that will follow." we last spoke to john in july 2020. at the time, he was warning the pandemic could get "much, much worse." welcome over the last year, over 3.5 million people

have died around the world, including nearly 500,000 in the united states. john barry, so sadly, your prediction was right. talk about what you learned from the 1918 spanish flu pandemic that we should learn from today. >> it is not just 1918. there were pandemics in 1989, 1957, 19 68, even 2009. they all behaved the same way. 1918 is the most dramatic. youad first wave that was very mild. one statistic encapsulate. in thousand sailors in the british brand fleet. the second wave, only four died. of the first wave was not particularly transmissible post the virus pick up an ability to transmit much more efficiently and also became much

mo lethal. that is where you get the 50 million to 100 million dead, two thirds of them under the second wave. there was a third wave, the virus continued to mutate. the third wave was actually less lethal than the second wave. after that, people's immune systems adjusted to the virus. possibly the virus mutated in a direction of mildness. but you saw similar pattern in 1957 of actually the deadliest month in the united states from that pandemic was in 1960 when a vaccine was available and when people had already adjusted their immune systems had already seen the virus. so a variant did that in 1960. 1968 is a littleore complicated. in the u.s. in the first wave in

1968 had the most deaths but in europe in 1969, again after a vaccine come after a lot of people have been exposed to the virus and had naturalmmunity, that was the deadliest year. 2009, similar thing happened. so this is not unusual what we are going through. the question is whether the next variant is going to be even more transmissible and possibly more bill your lint or whether it will be toned down -- we are going -- by the time the next varian emerges and spreads widely, we are going to have a very large majority of the country exposed for vaccinated. we already have 70% with at least one dose of adults. of about 90 to 0 milln

people who are not vaccinated. a lot of them are going to be exposed. in a few months, we will have over 80% of the population either fully vaccinated or having been actually exposed. there will be more changes in the virus. the question is what direction it is going to go. we don't know. nobody can predict that. i am hoping that things will calm down in a more permanent way in a couple of months. again, we will have well over 80% of the population probably either vaccinated or naturally exposed. nermeen: on the basis of your research on these previous pandemics, john barry, can you talk about what you think needs to be done both within the u.s. but also globally in order to prevent the virus from mutating

further and potentially, eventually entirely evading e vaccines? >> obviously, the only way you can prevent the virus from mutating is to prevent it from infeing people. so that means vaccination, social distancing, and so forth. when you don't have the vaccination. the more opportunities -- it is just like lling dice. the odds of not getting sick, the odds if you roll the dice ones are pretty good. but if you roll the dice 10,000 times, you're going to get a lot of snake eyes. the fewer people infected by the virus, the less opportunity it has to mutate. clearly, it does have the ability to escape both natural immunity and the vaccine. eventually, it is going to do that. i do think that will happen slowly enough that the vaccines

will be able to keep pace. we probably will need another shot every few years. the virus to its much less rapidly than influenza. nermeen: on the question of needing a another shot the next three years, what about the question of ministry booster shots -- administering booster shots here in the u.s.? >> honestly, i have some self interest in that. my wife and i are both over 70. there are ethical questions in terms of vaccine distribution around the world. i would say the vaccines in the united states are here. i d't see an ethical problem -- well, maybe i would see one,

actually. from a strictly medical standpoint, strictly medical, yeah, think it makes good sense to administer a bster. there is a study that just came out that said the pfizer vaccine as declined in july effective and preventing serious illness, hospitalization, death. premise triply medical standpoint, i think would make sense to have a booster. come the ethical standpoint in terms of just routing to the rest of the world, that is a different question. amy: john barry, the beginning of our show in the headlines, we talked about what is happening in tennessee and other places,

too. you have these meetings were schools, for example, are deciding on mask mandates an extremely hateful anti-mask protesters threatening doctors, public health professionals who say masks are very important right now. that happened last night at a public meeting. you talked about the issue of masks? back 100 years ago, en they used? going forward in history in this kind of vitriol in the issue of misinformation? >> they were used in 1918. scientists ran experiments with masks even before the pandemic, just before the pandemic. demonstrated masks on people who were sick protected people around them. they knew that scientifically in 1918. of the general public, masks in a lot of cities were required. they were not very good.

generally, jusleaders of gauze, not even secured to the chin. studies show those masks were not good. in terms of acceptance, however, there was some pushback but i think what pushback there was has been greatly exaggerated today. back then, that virus was much more lethal than what we are facing. it was killing children under 10, particularly children under five. it was extraordinarily lethal. two thirds of the total debts were probably people aged 18 to 50. when people were seeing death all around them, sometimes a neighbor dying in 12 hours, they took that virus seriously. nobody believed it was a hoax.

so when measures were suggested that would protect you, there was very wide acceptance of those measures. so the acceptance --he perception in 1918 was totally different than today. there is no logic to the position of theask protesters. it is absurd what they are saying. you can't smoke in a public place because your smoking can hurt somebody else. you can't -- every state even requires seatbelts when the only person that you would hurt is yourself. so to claim this is an infringement on freedom is nonsensical. sense, unfortunately, has taken a holiday under the political polarization we have been

saying. amy: john berry, thank you for being with us, professor at the tulane university school of public health and tropical medicine in new orleans, author of "the great influenza: the story of the deadliest pandemic in history." that does it for our show. a slight correction earlier, i said our guest's father had died of covid. in fact, she lost her mother-in-law to covid in tunisia. democracy now! is currently accepting applications for our video production fellowship and our digital fellowship here in our new york city studio. the deadline is this weekend. you can learn more and apply at democracynow.org. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

óo

i grew up inorth alama. we lived in an old log cabin. and all i wanted to do was be outside. we moved out to the west, and i remember these expanses of places where we were free to go rock climbing,