Law scholar and historian and given us a book for the ages in the midst of a pandemic so you said your goal what do you mean by that quick. Great question i wanted to write a book that would be a first draft of the history for the year of covid and beyond but to speak to the interested reader not just the specialist in the field i got the value added to readers you are fascinated of the legal issues in the last six months that really be on most peoples agenda until now. We never thought about past epidemics but we are now what we can learn from them and what do we know when it will be over so at the end of your book to ask you more about this question america has two histories one is far more appealing in the months and years ahead they will hold the power between them lets hope they make the right choice. I will be asking you more what that choice is at the end of the interview but for now , what is the ugly part of america . The ugly part is the discrimination against racial minorities and the poor and people without political clout on the losing side of the losing side of the epidemic and with that european arrival in north america it goes way back it has been a through line in that history of discrimination we need to grapple with racially disparate affects and it brings that history back it is one central piece that i couldve written a book is just about the other side. I found so much material and also contesting politics of disease where it reveals are in inequities that hasnt been as clear that was rendered as evidence. So throughout the 19th century we see various forms of progressive reforms to lift up at the people that are the poorest in the community because their Health Matters so that vision of solidarity pulls in a different kind of politics some of those histories are in our past and present and im sure our future i just dont know the ratio what that will be and people of color and black americans and American Indians they suffered four times greater than the Nonhispanic White population and in terms of the bigotry the president causes the china virus how does that play into the bigotry . There are certainly moments where the demagoguery going back in the bubonic plague with the quarantine orders with the chinese population in the way they could be scapegoated in the process. You are talking about the case from San Francisco in that area but they only applied to the chineseamerican population. With the evil eye that was a local decision have you seen a president of the United States seating into the biggest tree with the pandemic and scapegoating countries and this feature we havent seen as much and then to face the pandemic with the pandemic of 1918 and wilson and in part to mobilize to have troops abroad at the state and local level with the state and local officials struggling with Infectious Disease while the this is when a huge pandemic in history. I was on a panel the other day with another epidemic may be the aids epidemic it still going on. Somebody in the Bush White House starting cap far which is a great legacy for the United States and us leadership of Global Health but something that i thought was interesting with the reagan and wilson during aids never mentioned aides. But didnt get in the way or criticize or undermine Public Health agency it is unusual to take a stand against the big Public Health agencies. Part of the presidency has changed but in the postworld war ii. But the rise of the modern presidency of the Public Health the return of Infectious Diseases to put 21st century president s in a 19th century setting. Thats a new phenomenon. We are fighting until we get those treatments and with Contact Tracing we dont have a vaccine. And then with the lockdown that later on. So to drill down a little bit you talk about the Police Powers it sounds quite ominous it conjures up a police state but tell us about that. It is misunderstood piece of American History and historians at work for a couple of decades to tell the real story of the police power doesnt have anything to do with anyone in uniform is not about the state troopers or the cops on the beat the basic fundamental power and the authority of local and state governments to make sure their Community Stay healthy and well of collective selfgovernment one of the wonderful things doing the research for the book wishes to encounter a plethora of examples to organize themselves around looking over the health and welfare that was central start with cicero and to suggest to me that government has no greater power to protect the health and security of citizens and we cant even stop those epidemic diseases so please power is important but specifically and then that would be important for the public to understand whos in charge and the federal government usually said not to have the police power to have enumerated powers specifically to the u. S. Constitution and the police power lies with the state and subordinates of the local government we with the central actors in our pandemic so with all those countries around the world so the federal government does have limited powers and to present the disease from going state to state. And one could easily imagine the federal government was much more ambitious and neither president ial candidate right now to such the but to suggest a National Math mandate and i will get to that but the interesting thing here is there is a lot of discussion meant to be fairly catastrophic sailor per capita and the top five worstperforming countries arguably the top two. And then to a 50 jurisdictions and then we cant function that we without a national leadership. In the states where we innovate. Its hard to say either way but the historian view it is shaping our response. The federal government has a variety of powers with the collective action problems so for example in the acquisition of ppe imagining the federal government that was a useful example but in the moment of a pandemic there is a variation and regionally have differing rules that are quite useful with you do that from the top or the bottom probably there are pluses and minuses i find the best make that judgment. The ppe is a great example as our listeners will remember we have states competing for price to buy ppe and ventilators and things like that. There are federalist societies around the world that have performed very well like germany. In germany not so well and it is an open question. One of the things on the top of a lot of peoples mind like the former fda commissioner recently did and oped where he called for a National Mask mandate. I wrote an article in the Journal American Medical Association to say hold on does the president have the power to do that . Or must it be congress . And do the commerce powers justify how could we get more uniformity nationally with masks and other protective mechanisms we try to promote . The biggest capacity is a bully pulpit. The power of the president to set an example to model and to encourage. That is where the federal executive branch and the complicated question. That congress has the authority to impose a mask mandate across the board. Now targeted mask mandates and federal facilities are interstate transportation where the federal government has obvious authority according to traditional constitutional standards. And then to stop a National Mask mandate before we get to those constraints. And enacting a special mandate when that kind of rule has been done pretty effectively at the state level. But if we had clear and consistent messaging about masks then we will have to see and to save tens of thousands of deaths in the United States but that brings me to my next set of questions. And the Population Based but most of us say in the book and then go on to refute it we say america is a place of rugged individualism. And the Asian Countries are european ones. With all the individualist and even now. And his rugged individualism and then to understood that. And in this nineties one out of ten died of yellow fever. But 1 percent have died of covid 10 percent of philadelphia died. And during yellow fever i grew up with this in some sense rugged individualism is terrible to deal with with Infectious Disease and collective authority through democratic processes to flourish is the alternative. We have had a myth that freedom comes that and moments of epidemics and figuring out a way to work collectively for all the resources to help us perish. And that speaks to my heart i totally agree with you. And others that say Civil Liberties matter more and with the civil libertarian and on the board of the aclu and as you seem to be so how do we get the balance right because to have a license how do we draw that line and how do we know . Its a great question and there is a hopeful bread of those american in court cases we have a tradition of courts reviewing Public Health decisions and insisting they be rational to take on discriminatory and with that legislature and a way they have overseen to prevent act epidemics without ever letting the likes of the rugged individual to interfere with will block the vital Health Measures and the jacobson case so this is the case extends from the proposition that states can mandate vaccinations and looking at those traditions . We certainly saw with the influenza pandemic with cities closing but can you imagine new york, los angeles, beijing, london would be absolutely locked down in relation to a pandemic . Even with all of your experience with yellow fever and smallpox . Did you think that would never happen . It took me by surprise and members of my generation im born in the year in which the United States stops inoculating people from smallpox. Born february 1972 so i have this world the people at the end of the year do not. So my lifetime its been easy to understand of course those is the same. With the new emergence of and fractious diseases so many of my peers may be as anticipated that we are partly sanitary and importantly quarantine relatively rarely with the travel walked down so all these things have converged. So to drill down a little bit more to specific Public Health hours just to get your take on them so talk about quarantine with the unusual case of quarantine with big cities or countries and to boggle the imagination. Those that are individuals or groups and is actually one of the classic powers of government to control under the jurisdiction now of course that power comes it to do risks. And has a real risk of abuse that is indispensable to selfgovernment. And that is the fundamental dilemma that is incredibly risky. And then living together but we have to find a way to muddle through. And also some terrible ones. And we can abuse it and in order to live together and it goes back centuries. What about Contact Tracing . With public and Global Health for many decades that all of a sudden everybody is a Public Health expert and what we have been talking about now and the common lexicon. And going back with sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis so we learned from previous Contract TracingContact Tracing. We are at the important juncture in history of Public Health and Contact Tracing and Infectious Diseases. But for the last half century there is an idea coming to the for the Civil Liberties and Public Health might run together maybe the best way is to ensure the people that get sick and maybe Civil Liberties is good for Public Health. New technologies are coming online and it could turn out to be contingent with a particular time in history we could attract people with Contact Tracing and Surveillance Technology is not just sending out but now we can do it through phones to have the power not only to collect this information but americans have a complicated reaction to the scary potential of Contact Tracing but the new form has scary features. Im glad that you move there with the electronic tracing idea before i do that it is interesting actually were not doing a lot of electronic tracing were still doing 19th century or 20th century shoe leather Walking Around and not doing that particularly well. But in the United States, we havent adopted the smart phone location apps the way of china, taiwan, south korea, europe because we are worried about privacy and make it voluntary if it is voluntary it will not work and also have genetic tracing to trace based on those genetic features based on the viral strain. So why is america not embracing the technology of tracing and should we . I think in part it is for getting the value of these power oldfashioned Contact Tracing is holding up the capacity of the state to have human beings to do the work to go and track and trace that requires people and governments to bring on that capacity i am lucky enough to teach at Yale University where we put our students back this fall we have extraordinarily effective so far knock on wood so far successful is october 26 but we had a huge number of contact tracers that can connect people to students in the last two months we all have that capacity so one of the things this is presenting the United States with is the value of state capacity that institutions can do with the richest private institutions have started to do on behalf of their members. It tells us we have to have a stronger Public Health infrastructure with the idea of technology but very quickly because were running out of time, speaking of technology and how the world has changed with all the globalization and travel one of the core differences is now we have social media and all the conspiracy theories around covid19 and vaccines and a lot of misinformation from the top of government that spans conspiracy theories how do we deal with good Health Education and literacy with the untruth just swirling all around us so that part of america has different facts than another part. There is a historical precedents looking at cholera era newspapers in new york city the democrats representing irish immigrants in new york persuaded that Public Health measures are anti immigrant to stir up democratic voters against those Health Measures in new york city so we see that going way back of course its also true Public Health authorities have lied to people with allies to start the program racism and Public Health and these experiments running for decades into the 1970s africanamerican men were experimented on to see syphilis and in an experiment they had effective treatments and they didnt treat the africanamericans which is dreadful and americans know about that history that makes it harder to combat conspiracy theories. The only substitute is trust and government and expertise but we are at a low moment that to see how the vaccine rollout happens in the coming months and trust will be indispensable we have to figure out how to reestablish that trust we need control to establish trust it became a world respected institution based in atlanta and trusted develop it was important and vital hopefully we can get back to that. I hope so with the cdc and other Public Health agencies has plummeted. I really hope we can get back to that if i would say one thing with the countries have done well and badly with covid is the trust of science in Public Health. The United States has not done well there. With the police power side talking about the trade off with privacy and liberty but specifically that it would be very important with covid and also the new Supreme Court so lets start with the idea for vaccines should they be exempted . Should churches be exempt from having to abide by the rules of congregation with public gatherings . These have already come to the Supreme Court twice with a very narrow five four decision with roberts siding with Public Health and could happen in the future. How do we think of the tradeoff between Public Health and religious freedom . Thats a good question not just those two Supreme Court cases but also the Circuit Court cases and the federal courts of appeals so this is central not just with covid litigation but in the regulatory state more generally. Its a regulatory state problem not a covid problem and the puzzle on the one hand it is probably illegal and unconstitutional on the other hand rules of general application need to apply with religion being one and viruses dont stop at the church house stores and the challenge to the legal system is to strike a balance and i know they are concerned religious freedom could be a new obstacle to the vital Health Measures but people dont care what religion so its hard to predict historian should never predict the future with this will be one of the central places. In most members of the American Public dont realize this term in the Supreme Court that they could be revisiting the idea of laws of general applicability and if they apply and religious context so its very real and immediate and imminent theres only a little bit of time left, less than ten minutes. Lets talk about something that is the most important part of your book and the covid pandemic which is equity and equality starting off talk about the dispersion impact of people of color you like to say basically Infectious Diseases the social level are but are they . Some of us like at yale have one reality and others have a poor innercity neighborhood with those of the existing conditions have a very different reality. What does this pandemic tell us so what do we learn from past pandemics and what should we be doing to prepare for more Going Forward . Is that inseparability of questions of both on the one hand and access to healthcare and then also to define freedom as keeping the government away. And then getting access. And that the pandemic has made when the vaccine is online we need to distribute it and administer it. And then the man the Public Health questions and that is a hopeful one despite the misery maybe we can see a little better. And the course of the coming weeks and months. I always thought before covid the prevailing narrative with people being left behind and you mention with the affordable healthcare with the socioeconomic factors of income and that has been quite striking and mentioning vaccines apart from the cost is the barrier but that scarcity which we will on the beginning on the basis of race. Those based on for their ability and those that are the most formidable. And then to identify the community as the most effective and with the triaged rules from that and from those statistics it is highly likely with the Vaccine Program to target those communities of color. It is significant and meaningful that the two major social upheavals is covid but also George Floyds murder in the protest of Racial Justice and the United States and from a historians point of view but also as an observer are these related are totally separate . And how . I reference a protest. And the way we see terrible inequities are more salient than at any point in my lifetime when in the thousand africanamericans have died. Those that see better and i hope readers of the book to say that time and time again and has exacerbated and highlighted those are qualities and at the same time has shown that path. We are in the middle of the president ial election whether or not the United States and has Structural Racism and how do we get beyond that Structural Racism with a boiling cauldron and with this microscopic virus and to have enormous income and social inequality and also Racial Justice. And if you think of the election of 1864 there is a smallpox epidemic and with those enslaved people so we had these can junctures before that in our version and those in 1864 we are grappling with things now that we couldnt before and thats a hard thing and it is indispensable. We have seen a lot of social protest and political rallies and a lot of discussion has been with the political rally in the election season can you protest the injustice of the pandemic . Is it safe. Talk to a Public Health expert not a historian there is a history of conjuncture. But also the lynchings and race riots and a dreadful year for africanamerican communities. We have seen these can junctures before was civil war and world war i but then there was the epidemic and with those social structures that go together. And absolutely right. Getting to my last question from a set with this after the great influenza pandemic we had something that what happened after that . It wasnt world war i but they did have the roaring twenties. And then we had the great depression. And then i have this interview and in so many ways but we began by saying we hope to choose the wise path but what is the path we should choose . Does history teach us anything . Or would we be torn asunder . Historians of the future what else do we have other than the past . There are inspiring pieces of her history of the founding generation the guidelines of the 19th century it was indispensable they have the power to respond rationally and effectively to Public Health and Infectious Disease crisis and then to be inspired that the forefathers did respond and on the other hand we can do better in the sense we can learn from their mistakes and those to see the inequities with the Public Health crises and address those. But also pretty terrible path. So lets hope. What a wonderful book and we are all trying to figure this out and to reflect on the past and the present and the future. Thank you so much. Take care. Welcome. Im the executive director of the Aspen InstituteBusiness Society program. It is my great pleasure today to welcome to the screen with me to fellow travelers of the business side of the program, longtime friends of the work who share deep knowledge i would say of the forces and ideas that influence business decisionmaking. For the business and Society Program as i take a look at rogers book, a couple things come to mind