Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
What Happened: Dr. Jay Bhattacharya On 19 Months Of COVID
From the very beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya has been on the front lines of analyzing, studying, and even personally fighting the pandemic. In this wide-ranging interview, Dr. Bhattacharya takes us through how it started, how it spread throughout the world, the efficacy of lockdowns, the development and distribution of the vaccines, and the rise of the Delta variant. He delves into what we got right, what we got wrong, and what we got really wrong. Finally, Dr. Bhattacharya looks to the future and how we will learn to live with COVID rather than trying to extinguish it, and how we might be prepared to deal with another inevitable pandemic that we know will arrive at some point.
Recorded on October 13, 2021
Published in General
Great interview. Highly recommended.
Halfway through and so far great. A lot of info we already know, but good to see it’s confirmed.
Peter, at one point, makes the off hand observation that the healthy elderly could have been put in hotels to be protected, at the government’s expense, at a fraction of the cost of the chosen response to COVID-19, and saved the rest of us form having to be locked down.
Wait for it…Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Levine, Pennsylvania health official moved mother from nursing home (nypost.com)
Dr. Levine is now a four star admiral and Assistant Secretary of Health for the US Government.
Added it to my list for the weekend. Looking forward to it.
Bhattacharya was excellent. Robinson, as usual, took 5+ sentences to ask each question when 1 or 2 would have done the job.
Be nice. 🤣
Thanks Peter, this was excellent. As someone who currently works for DoD (at least for the next month or so…) I am in the throes of this as we speak. It is a very divisive issue and I appreciate your and Dr. B’s handling of it. I particularly appreciate your read back of what he says for the rest of us (“dumb it down for Dan” I like to say).
Dr. Jay (I’m not even going to try with the surname) has throughout the pandemic seemed like such a voice of reason. That may be confirmation bias, as I appreciate that he has always brought up the costs (human and financial) of the virus mitigation techniques such as lockdowns, deferred medical car, and school closings that many in officialdom ignore or skip over.
In this interview, I think especially prescient is his comment that the public health officials have undermined their long-term effectiveness by doing so much self-inflicted damage their reputations by becoming so overtly political.
It’s about the journey, not the destination. 😉
I have said before, and I will reiterate, these two gentlemen are among my favorite commentators. Having them together is a real treat. I listened to Post Corona following this, and the contrast was extreme. I had read Christakis’ book Apollo’s Arrow, about a year ago. It was good, but his lean to the left is all too obvious in how he interprets events and discoveries about the origins of the virus.
On one hand we had Bhattacharya who gives a reasoned and credible description of the errors made, holding the people who ignored the science and economics responsible, many continue to do so, and the other hand you have someone who makes excuses for them. Christakis continues to defend what will prove to be devastating policies, claiming that science operates that way. Fauci wasn’t lying. He was simply changing his approach as the new information became available, according to Christakis.
It is an amazing contrast, and well worth listening to both podcasts to see and understand how political agendas continue on the left. Christakis continues to question the “theory” that the virus was created in a lab even though no animal has been found with the virus, and evidence has plainly emerged that the Chinese were working on increasing the ability of a corona virus to infect humans, and that with support from Fauci and company. The “theory” might have been subject to controversy when he wrote his book 18 months ago, but the fact that he has not accepted the more recently evolved data to the contrary is clear proof that it isn’t science driving his views. It is clear that Christakis will continue to hold his view despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He isn’t a scientist. He is an ideologue with a leftist agenda.
@peterrobinson You are NOT a cynic. You are a ray of optimistic sunshine on whom I depend to carry the sunny Reagan spirit forward. Please don’t change.
Great interview, as usual. I always learn from these. Sharing this around my networks.
A great interview. My eyes are becoming open. A lot of what I/we believed about COVID-19 just wasn’t true. The benefit of Dr. Jay B is that he makes his presentation without rancor. That is extremely effective. Thank you Peter for being a brilliant interviewer. Thank you Dr. Jay B for your courage.
A small point. We are so benefited by the immigration system that allowed Dr. Jay B. to stay in the U.S., presumably as a citizen. This is a strong argument for us to have an immigration system which has us consider the potential benefits of an immigrant, and doesn’t close the door. A tall wall, and a large door.
A major issue which was not raised is the danger from mass vaccinations in a pandemic. People who have either already had COVID or are young don’t need it. Mass vaccinations lead to the evolution of variants which will put the vulnerable at risk again. Don’t get the vaccine if you don’t need it lest you kill grandma should be our motto. This is the perspective of people such as Dr Robert Malone.
I also fear about the long term risks of vaccines plus boosters on the young. I think these risks are significantly underestimated. I worked as an actuary for a Fortune 500 company ten years ago and we were dealing with the costs of Thalidomide 50 years after it had been given to pregnant women. The government is discouraging reports of negative reactions to the vaccine.
Easy ways to reduce the severity of the disease have been ignored such as testing Vitamin D levels and giving supplements when the levels are low. My wife had low levels last year which she solved using supplements. When she got COVID last December it was a mild flu apart from her losing her sense of taste and smell for a while. There are other solutions besides vaccines for those who are not in the high risk categories. And yet the march to vaccinate the young continues.
So you feel any guilt about wanting to dox people for not wearing a mask?
A great comment.
I more regret my behavior, than feel guilty about it.
This interview is one of my favorites.
I think one of the big lies that was portrayed by public health professionals was that Dr. Jay and other signers of the Great Barrington Declaration were in favor of just letting the virus run rampant, and as most people wanted to avoid the Italian situation, we agreed to the lockdown without recognizing the valid alternatives.
Outstanding discussion.
I don’t think they were in favor, but by the time we started implementing policy it was too late, and that was their point. And we are still doing it. Consider the following graph depicting daily new cases of COVID-19. Assume for the sake of this argument that the chart is generally correct, if not in the actual rate of infection, then the relative shape.
The red arrow represents where, if we were going to implement vaccine mandates, lock downs, etc to slow the spread, we should have done so. But in actual fact here it is October 24th and the vaccine mandates in particular still aren’t in full swing (the DoD mandate that affects my company won’t be in effect until December).
No doubt Uncle Jay Bee* will pat himself on the back for ending the delta wave. But the delta wave is following the exact trajectory that epidemiologists said it would in August: peak in early- to mid-September and see a steady decline to pre-delta numbers.
*I realize that some may think I’m referring to Jay Bhattacharya; I’m not.
I am not sure I understand the difference, but fair enough.
I regret the current President is for a totally uncontrolled system of immigration, unlike the last guy, who made more moves towards the sort of system we both want than any other President in my lifetime. I really regret he is not still in office.
Vaccine mandates make things worse. The highly at risk are already vaccinated. Many of the unvaccinated, like my wife, have already had COVID and don’t need it. The vaccine mandates will set us up for a superbug which will negate the protection vaccines provide.
#WhatIBeenSayin
The number of voters that are against this is immeasurably tiny.