oscar elaine. he's an epidemiologist and us public health official. he joins us from washington, dc. doctor, good to have you back here now to 0. ah, some countries over reacting to this it's a very difficult decision. and one that i say it's a balance between evidence based decision making and the path implications. so you have a parent which has about 30 mutations on the spike protein. so that alone is alarming . or there's concerned because of not much information about it about as rapid rate of spread. in addition, i don't know whether there will be more implications on the treatments that are available. will it disable or make the vaccine effort minimize or, or lessened, or even the anti react monochrome antibodies or the other treatments? will it have a negative impact? so with that, i guess there's an error on the side of caution, but i totally understand the concern from the south african government, especially because of the policy and the financial implications to its industry as well. but we are in the mid to the global pandemic, which is s

. >> elaine mcmillion sheldon is an oscar nominated author born and raised in western virginia. l. in fact, it sounds threatening. >> elaine: right, but both sides are saying the same thing. both sides feel threatened by each other. and i would say a majority of people that live in this region want to be left alone. the traditions of this place, the things that we value, whether that be family, interpersonal communication, not having cell phone technology to distract us, those types of things sort of butt up against america's idea of progress. and it's why we've always been looked at as being backwards. ♪ being part of the media, but living here, is a really big challenge because rarely, people like myself actually are the ones that control our narrative, that control our story. ♪ >> anthony: it was always too easy to come gawk at west virginia. to make it the poster child for whatever the agenda of the moment was. lazy depictions of stereotypical west virginians. hillbillies and hicks, tucked into isolated hollers to be pitied or made objects of laughter and derision. >> elaine: