Transcripts For CSPAN3 Philip 20240705

And now i am delighted to introduce tonight speakers philip is the white burkett miller, professor of history at university of virginia, where he has also served dean of the graduate school and director of the miller center. His scholarly work has on critical episodes in american and world history. He has been a member of the defense policy board for defense Ashton Carter and a member of the board of the bill and Melinda Gates foundation and 2020 he was elected a member of the American Academy of diplomacy joining him on our digital stage this evening. Our coauthors kendall hoyt and dr. Richard j. Hatcher. Kendall hoyt, an assistant professor at gisela school of medicine at. And a senior lecturer at the third school of engineering at dartmouth college, where she teaches courses on biosecurity Health Systems and technical technological innovation. She serves on the us Covid Commission planning group. Has served as a consultant for the coalition for epidemic preparedness innovations and the Nuclear Threat initiative. And is the author of longshot vaccines for national, published by Harvard University press in 2012. Dr. Richard j. Hatch it is chief executive officer of the for epidemic preparedness innovations, a Global Partnership that supports the Swift Development of and equitable to new vaccines, other defenses against diseases with epidemic and pandemic potential. Dr. Hatchett and his plan is for the world to neutralize those pandemic threats with passion and investment in research and development. Tonight our speakers will be discussing lessons from the covid war by the Covid Crisis Group led by Philip Zelikow lessons from the covid war plain spoken and clear sighted. It cuts through the enormous jumble of information. Make some sense of it all. And to answer what . Just to us and why. And how. Next time could we do better . Because there will be a next time. The covid war showed americans that their wondrous scientific knowledge had run far of their organized ability. Apply it in practice improvising to fight this. Many americans displayed ingenuity and dedication but they struggled with systems made success difficult and failure easier. This shows how americans can come together learn hard truths, build on what works, and prepare global emergencies to come. We are so pleased to be hosting this event tonight. The digital podium is. Philip campbell and dr. Well. Thank you natasha. Such a nice introduction. And thanks to harvard. Thanks to the Harvard Bookstore for giving us a chance to talk about this new book. By the way, that the book looks like this beautiful blue cover. If you go by the harvard and spot that scribe blue, you know what to buy. So this is an odd book really. Its got 34 coauthors and. Youre entitled to a little bit of an excellent as to how this thing came into existence. We were originally supposed to help plan a national Covid Commission, several foundations asked me to run an effort to prepare the way for a Huge National commission that would investigate and understand the. Biggest crisis to hit the United States since the second world war. If you measure it by life lost and money spent so we gathered this enormous group of 34 people, outstanding people, including and richard and 31 others. We interviewed. We held listening sessions, hundreds of people and task forces did a lot of work. And then we last year, you know what . Theres not going to be a National Effort commission for various in the congress and in the executive branch. And so we could either pack up all our insights and go home and we hope town meetings among the group to decide what do with members basically said well i think we now need to just tell people what we know and the result of deciding to just tell people what we out is this book so this is the i think the only available account right now that in plain english goes through all the key choices made in this crisis from origins to operation warp speed and everything in between. Its i think theres no way anyone would read this report without feeling like they can now make a better sense of what happened to them as well as to their country and indeed a lot of the world. There are a lot of one of the things that im often is okay, whats the big takeaway, this report . And the big takeaway, this report is not about follow the science. Its really about getting ready for a great emergency. Its about preparedness. What is preparedness mean in general . Knowing what to do in an emergency and, being ready to do it. If you want to see. What preparedness really meant in practice in this crisis, which doesnt neatly under red or blue label partizan labels. When you this book itll just be obvious to you what means. Itll be obvious you what it meant to be unready. But also youll see all sorts. Terrific. Improvizations that were done during the crisis. Some led actually by richard that inspire terrorists with a lot of low fruit. That could help us be much more prepared for the great emergency next time. So the first key theme is preparedness. A lot of people also. Well, you know what they present us with their standard narratives and theres a blame narrative on the republican side that, well, lets just blame china or lets just blame the Public Health experts for which tony fauci becomes poster child or on the democratic side, lets blame president trump. You know, the irony of blaming Public Health system. I was asked about this recently is that the Public Health and the Public Health leaders fail. Well, they were set up to fail. We came into a 21st Century National pandemic with a system designed the 19th century, a at the time this pandemic hit us, we were set up to fail. So should we then blame those leaders for the failure. That seems somewhat unfair. As for president trump, anyone, this book will conclude, as we did, that he was at the least a a comorbidity a preexisting condition that increases the risk of death or serious illness. And no one reading this book would come away it believing that trump should be anywhere near the instruments government anytime soon. But if you think that the crisis and what happened in our country was all about president trump, he actually a lot of what actually in the crisis and a lot of the reasons we failed a crucial conclusion of the book is the polarization and toxic politics were fed by lack of preparedness. Very quickly it became obvious a lot of people ready to take guidance on what to do. And we didnt have really good guidance to give them. We didnt have were flying blind in tracking the progress, the pandemic. We didnt have good tool to fight it. And into that void of, not knowing what to do and the flailing the floundering into that void, toxic politics could then just in and that started happening all through 2020 and just kept getting and worse and then you see that story unfold through the report with all kinds insights in which lots of people were trying to do the best they could and. A system that made success hard and failure easy. So what wed like to do now is having just introduced a little bit of what we were up to and what this report was about, i want to turn to kendall first to answer couple of questions and then turn the conversation to richard and the two things that i want kendall to take is how you handle, the private sector, growing a giant emergency of the Public Sector obviously didnt have the capabilities to respond at scale in this situation. You had that, therefore, from some of partnership with the private sector. So and kendall, in particular looked at this Public Private nexus and id like to hear again some of her insights about this. And then secondly, id like you to reflect a little bit about whether or not we to get ready for Health Security in the ways we sometimes get for problems of National Security. So, kendall, over to you you. Youve never been one for easy questions. I think an important point when it comes to working the private sector to realize is that this is a team effort that government cant do without industry. Industry cant do this without government. And i think important as richard will tell us, no country can do this without. Other countries, and thats huge part of it, which i talk about a little too. But when it comes to working with industry, i mean that thats form of preparedness to. So preparedness is really about what are we doing right now . And if we are not sitting at the company at the table, companies in, this moment of relative calm to figure out how are going to develop the next generation of medical countermeasures for covid or for Something Else then weve failed to understand the lesson of this pandemic. Right. And we need preexisting partnerships to move quickly. And i mean, this is the lesson of cepi. This is the of richard and what hes done at cepi. They were able to initiate cepi, by the way, is the acronym cspi, the coalition for epidemic preparedness, innovation and everyone get a quiz on whether they can say that thats something that is that they can say quickly. So. I think cepi is. One of doing incredible work, really remarkable visionary organization. Im going to blame richard for, their portion of that. But they were able to initiate it and redirect contracts just 13 days after a chinese scientist posted the sequence, sarscov2 and we should talk little bit about how they do that, because different from how we do it in us there, they have a very proactive and strategic stance, whereas we tend to be little bit more transactional and reactive and it does not put us in a position to move as as cepi was able to. So i think that was thats very important. Your second question was about nationals treating this as a security issue. You know, and i think i think its a very one of the reasons we say that one of the reasons we call it a National Security issue is because we need to its a useful analogy, especially when youre talking about development and procurement, and we need to be able to procure in parallel with multiple preexisting in order to have the speed, the scale that we need in an emergency. But, you know, unlike like in a traditional war, you know, we really in a fast pandemic, id say were really in a race against time and not against each other. So its a collective security problem in that regard. And so some of the best Solutions Available to us are collective as well. And one, there are many different ways of thinking about this where its not a zero sum game necessarily or it doesnt have to be a zero sum game. So, you know, think about we procure vaccines public funders have more leverage to shape the market for public goods such as vaccines when they Work Together and when you can build the mechanisms, the tools that allow you to do that. A you have a bigger of money so you can inspire more innovation, have more diversity, reduce risk, but you can also determine the terms which you distribute that good. So you can distribute on the basis of need. You can deliver the vaccines where its most likely to end transmission. And you know, you can do it as opposed to having it go to the highest bidder, which is what happens when you just nations competing high income nations competing. And when it goes to the highest bidder it drives up the cost and reduces access and everyone loses. So to the extent that we can search for collective solutions, think that would be you know, use the security where it helps you and then depart from where it doesnt would be my answer to. So in the last part of your answer and your comments kendall you opened up the issue of thinking about this as a global war, because these Health Emergencies kinds of 21st century problems for global and all of us very practical about the pressure from governments and national citizens. None of us think were living in utopia were all working in the real world. But richard really was because he was running this organization that was kind of the global vaccine finder, kind of unusual Nonprofit Organization based in europe. And then when this pandemic broke so he had the job of being the global vaccine finder for this pandemic and testing whether his organization was ready. So richard, i want you to comment on two things i want you to comment. First of all, what is how should we understand the meaning of a global war . How should this is a global struggle thats important about, as you know, strategic. And second, then, is. All right. And then what are some of your insight into what it me would mean for prepared ness. This theme of preparedness first to try to be prepared global over to you right first let me thank natasha and the Harvard Bookstore for having us. Its Harvard Bookstore is one of my favorite stores, bookstores in the u. S. So its really an honor to join this evening. And philip and kindle thank you for the kind remarks about cepi is you know its an output of the people cepi and i just have the privilege leading it. So just a little bit of background for, for those of you who may not be familiar with cepi, its a relatively new organization which is hopefully why so many had heard of it when the pandemic started, but it was set up in 2017 as a result of the ebola epidemic in west was probably the major sort of policy innovation coming out of the ebola epidemic in west africa and that the idea behind setting it up was that ultimately a vaccine was deployed into west africa at the very tail end of the epidemic after. It had been brought under control with traditional Public Health interventions, but after 27,000 infections and 11 more than 11,000 deaths and an estimated. 3 billion of impact on the Global Economy and i think global Health Leaders were shocked and dismayed that a vaccine that was ultimately shown to be hundred percent effective was not to be deployed when it was needed and it had languished in laboratories making. Slow progress for well over decade. And so cepi was created to address neglected epidemic diseases and to accelerate Vaccine Development in and of covid happened after we had been operating for a little less three years and they thinking about the the covid problem. I mean i mean a pandemic is in a global issue. These pandemics, diseases dont respect boundaries. They move very, very they seed around the world. Then they tend to almost simultaneously regions of the world in many, many countries, the world. And so thinking about, i mean, a pandemic is an inherently transnational problem. And the ideal circumstance would be to contain an incipient pandemic at source. But to do that, most countries dont have the capability do that by themselves. They will need. So there are significant disincentives for countries to report outbreaks because they are of the consequences of reporting outbreaks in terms of travel and border closures and being off from from trade and travel. And i think that we now recognize that there were delays in, communications out of china about the seriousness of the in wuhan and even some delays. And we talk about that in the book in terms of releasing information about the nature of the pathogen and. Those delays provided time, the virus to spread and for its geographic diffusion to the point at which by the time china geared up with the dramatic interventions in the middle of january 2020, the opportunity containment globally probably had been lost. China using incredible, you know, an incredible set of interventions able to contain it within china. But the genie was out of the bottle and we saw the rapid escalation of the epidemic around world Different Countries responded using different to early cases. And i think its important for american audiences to to really understand the ways in which the american Public Health system and the american response let the country down because other countries like south korea, other large countries south korea, japan, singapore is a small country, but singapore is one. Australia responded differently. The us, the most. Most of the countries emphasized early Rapid Deployment of diagnostics with aggressive testing and tracing campaigns. Thats what happened in south korea and in japan. Implementation of nonpharmaceutical, but not necessarily mandatory closures. The widespread use of masks in japan. Japan is you know, it has oldest population in the world and the lowest death among countries of the g7. I think the death rate in japan is somewhere, you know, a third or less than that of the and in the uk. So there is a lot to at looking at the Different National experiences the virus particularly early in the pandemic in the way populations responded in terms of insights for preparedness and that kind of leads into the insights for preparedness. I do think its imperative review of the way Different Countries responded and particularly the behavioral response of populations in Different Countries will be really important to understanding the differential that weve seen. One of the things that im seeing sitting in an International Organization talking to Different Countries, different regions that are thinking preparedness now, one big important lesson is that because of the inequities of access to medical countermeasures, the regions that suffered from lack of access, particularly in africa but also in other parts of the global south south america, parts south asia, Southeast Asia are now committing to developing regional capacities for production and scaling of countermeasures. That i think is a good thing. I dont think well ever be able to overcome the responses. Politicians, national politicians, to get to take care of their own populations. I mean, that has to that is just ineluctable outcome of of a threat like a pandemic. Theres also a particularly across the high income countries, countries that are in the g7, countries in the g20 aid there are going to be massive levels of resources that are now poured into pandemic preparedness, usually through national to address National Security needs. But collectively those resources that are poured into national or in some cases regional mechanisms and again, to a certain extent into International Mechanisms like stepping up some of some of our system. Collectively, that investment in preparedness, if there is a degree. What id say like coordination provides a foundation for creating global capability to respond to future and the one of the Silver Linings i suppose if there was one to the pandemic was the Rapid Advances in different technologies and the proof of concept for how those technologies be used either for diagnostic purposes, for surveillance purposes, wastewater, i think is has become a thing because of the pandemic emerging technology probably its its validation was accelerated perhaps by as much as a decade because of the pandemic. So were emerging from the pandemic with an amazing set of tools and level of global in pandemic preparedness and in new and new tools and, an opportunity if we choose to take it. And i think thats the point of the book that have contributed to is, is to lay out that experience very clearly so that the failures and the successes are recognized and understood in the interest of taking advantage of these opportunities we have. Well, this experience is still salient and, searing to make a set of reforms and institutional changes that would allow us to respond more effectively in the future. So i want to just take notice of what both of you were saying. Kendall is saying weve actually learned quite a lot from the crisis about how to work with private industry to get ready. Another emergency, if only will absorb those lessons. And then richard, in turn, has said that actually the crisis has shown a lot of new technological capabilities, a lot of new tools. So between learning better about to work with industry and the opportunity to exploit these new, there is a lot of real potential here to do this. If we have the system to do it. So the the report itself talked a lot about our system. It made the point for example that if you compare this with affluent countries, similarly affluent in europe, the states system did much you know all 300 plus million did much worse than their 300 plus million at every stage of classes. And, you know, people have these images of say modern country supermodel countries like germany or norway. But if you were to compare, say, the state of florida, the state of spain, of spain, excess mortality rates were 50 lower than floridas on an age adjusted basis. And a lot of that and you can get similar numbers in all sorts of comparisons with italy or others, because a lot of the differences are just deep differences in the institutions. We went into this crisis in a situation where we thought we had, a national Public Health agency called the cdc and the cdc sometimes thought of itself as a Public Health agency. But as we in the report, we have no national Public Health agency in america not really the cdc has no executive or Operational Authority around the country and has no particular reservoirs of staff to meet a national emergency. You know, we went into this war without, an army or battle plan. So then you have a situation where the Public Health system and its data is completely from the Health Care System and its data, which is completely detached from the biopharma, Industrial Complex and its war winning weapons. And no one in washington and who is trying to kind of write the script for all this and and offer and the orchestra. Another analogy some of our doctors use is you all these specialists crowding the patient, but theres no one whos the attending physician whos responsible. The overall coordination of care and. To this day, we still havent clarified who was the attending among among the specialists. But these are things our government can fix. And in a way the purpose of our report was to show people that they can be searched. And so people come away from this kind of feeling discouraged and hopeless. We also took on the origins and offer offer a pretty good account of all the respective theories and. We dont come down hard either way because i think the evidence is there yet. But we say theres a very clear agenda for the future and trying to track outbreaks overseas, but also in to regulate and better a handle on these new frontiers of biological. Where the crisis is certainly called out to a lot of some of the potential dangers and youll i think a pretty forward discussion of that and the report i wanted to come back a little bit to you, kendall, because theres been a lot discussion of the role of the biopharma industry in the crisis not just ask you kind of a general question of should we view the biopharma industry, the drug industry as villains . Do you kind of think them as sort of evil, multinational. I mean, youve worked on this problem. Mean just share a little bit. Its like, how do you want us to think about these behemoths . I mean, as i said we cant the government cant without industry. And industry cant do it without. Its absolutely effort. And we need to both parties need to do the best they can to help the other succeed. I think, you know, one of the ways that i mean, you mentioned, you know, why did why did america fare so badly, you know, i dont i dont know that thats necessarily anyone industrys fault. I wouldnt say that. But what it does point to is we dont have a great way of knowing if were prepared. We dont have a good measure or metric for preparedness. So i mean, on the Health Security index, you know, u. S. Ranked really high for the ability to detect and respond to novel outbreaks. You on paper, we looked great, but we did not have a great way to test evaluate some of those capabilities. So i mean one capability that would make a huge is one that richard talks about is the ability develop a new drug to a novel outbreak or vaccine in 100 days. Thats the between an outbreak and a pandemic thats the difference between, you know, 100 million and 16 trillion. You know, and, you know, 100 million, you know, who knows . Many million lives. So thats thats a worthwhile investment. And thats something you do industry and government. The market doesnt call for that. Theres no market incentive to be able to do that in 100 days. Why would you build a drug for a disease might disappear or that almost certainly will disappear if develop a drug for it. So, you know, that has to be done with government and. We should build this capability and we should test it and we should evaluate it and we should do it every year. And maybe for a novel outbreak, but maybe for a disease that we that has a high disease burden. Thats how, you know, if you can do it. And then youve really an innovation and a public asset public good that actually will ultimately help industry that should let me you kind of a tough question i mean obviously a lot of worries about our relations with china about chinas role this crisis or lack of role in this crisis, the fact that china was was clearly i think all accounts a slow providing information to the world about. What was going on about giving the world early access to virus samples that would allow us to help produce really good tests before cases showed up on our own shores. All of that. So as you think about the challenge also ahead and we discussed some of this in the book portfolio, little bit about should we give up on international because the divisions we have in the world today, i mean, you spent some time in asia are they giving up on international cooperation. I would like to think philip, its an its an important question. Would like to think that there would be areas where collaboration is possible, even other geopolitical conflicts are being worked out. I have often talked the fact that russia or the ussr and the United States collaborated to eradicate smallpox, even at the height of the cold war when they were fighting proxy wars in other locations. They werent whether they have eradicate smallpox and, the disease transcend the the gop conflict of the day, which was a pretty sharp conflict. Its incredibly that china and the United States and europe were not able to better coordinate their independent to develop countermeasures and to distribute countermeasures and to counter became of geopolitics during during during the crisis covax the effort that we helped set up with gavi and w. H. O. In a minute and explain what covax was. Sure. I mean i mean, covax was it was it was an effort to create a fair allocation mechanism for vaccines and it was set up early in the pandemic with the goal of distributing vaccines to make sure that they were allocated to countries irrespective of National Wealth and that the countries we anticipated that vaccines would be scarce for much longer than they were actually scaling up of vaccines during response over the first couple of years was absolute would be unprecedented, but it was very clear that there were segments of the population were much more vulnerable to bad outcomes from the disease than other segments of the population. And the the efficient allocation of would save more lives if and so we tried to set a mechanism to do that and we also set up the mechanism at a time when it was not at all clear that any of the novel approaches that were being used would actually work. Not in the theres a really interesting history, which i think is an important proof of concept for thinking about preparedness, future viral threats, as to why so many of the vaccine didnt work. But we didnt know that at the time. And so covax was set up to invest in an r d portfolio, a large r d portfolio and to allow for Early Advance purchase of those vaccines. And then through a fair allocation mechanism and it fell short of its aspiration and for a number of reasons, which probably more than well talk about right now, but i would would just say that. You know, in in terms the institutional response, im im deviating from your question. Unfortunately. But can we remember what the question was . It was about china. It was about we walk without bernie. Let me let me come. Ill come back to that the point about institutional responses is there were some institutional novelties that didnt work perfectly even warp speed didnt work perfectly. But operation warp speed covax something called the actaccelerator that probably should be institutionalized. And i weve had our Bretton Woods moment with respect to pandemic diseases and now we need to have a period of institutional reform. China coming back to china. Thanks for the reminder. Has tremendous scientific capability, tremendous industrial capability. They actually authorized their first vaccines in august of 2020. They a different regulatory theory they treated the platforms they were using the inactivated vaccines as essentially well understood and only required phase one and phase two testing of the vaccines before authorizing them emergency authorization even while they required the continued performance of efficacy trials even after the authorization they rolled out their vaccines earlier actually than we did in the west. And i think theres a there we can disagree with how they defined it. Well characterized platform but the regulatory theory that they use is one that we should study closely for example and so there should be collaboration its in everyones interest that Information Exchange and information about outbreaks and new pathogens be shared and shared rapidly. And it profoundly shortsighted, even with the controversies about and controversies about who did what when and who should have shared information, its profoundly shortsighted to let our current geopolitical situation prevent scientific collaborations that have been going ongoing for quite some time and would continue naturally absent political interventions. So i want to turn the floor in a moment over to tosha, a moderate sum questions that we may have, but i to stress that although we havent spent a lot of time on it and this is part in this webinar, the book spends a lot of time on the state and local response. It spends a lot of time on issues like school closures. It talks a lot about the struggle, our Health Care System and our doctors and our nurses. It talks a lot about issues, communication and crisis and disinformation. So there are a lot of topics we havent gone into in depth tonight, and i just want to be sure that viewers know that our reporting, those issues are important, too. So, natasha, over to you. And q so much to so i have there are quite a few questions right here. Im going to stick with one of them because am also kind of curious about the latest covid booster and why and i guess this is kind of Going Forward why didnt thought have some of the latest variants is how this question is asking im just wondering sort of whats our plan Going Forward for the booster is all right so im to let im going to this is a jump ball for both richard and kendall but especially richard and would be the actual in the room. Yes because you need to both talk about the available vaccine and if you want to you can dispense Public Health advice as to whether people should take it even if already had some shots. But i natasha is also kind of asking you to show the forecast the rhythm of how this is going to unfold the future. Well it it very difficult to forecast with any degree of confidence given the way the virus. Behaved today. What we have seen with the vaccines that we have, even the original vaccines now updated vaccines, the baby vaccines is the protection they offer against. Infection is. But the infection that they are for, against severe infection and death. The protection against severe disease and death is robust and enduring. And thats encouraging the virus is evolving rapidly. I mean, it is also infected probably at this point six or 7 billion people. So its had lots of opportunities to evolve in lots of, you know, variable immune from from populations have either been naturally infected or exposed to vaccines that is, you know, creating on the virus to and in the presence of, you know, significant human immune responses at this point. And so it i you we have seen the emergence of new variants that have caused significant increases in transmission significant increases in death rates the death rates fortunately, we are coming down. We hope they will stay down. You cannot predict with certainty how the virus is going to evolve. Viruses that very low death rates. The the selective pressure caused by a doubling or a tripling or a quintuple of the death by a random mutation perhaps is not going to be very strong. Right. If you go from 0. 2 to 1 , you know, its going to take a long time with the virus where, you know, theres only a 1 mortality for that higher mortality. So to be detrimental to the spread of the virus. So as well as we can tell right now, based the science that we have, the words, what is saying is the virus can kill percent of its hosts and still live happily ever after. Yes, still transmit happily ever after. I mean, i think the the short answer is for the time being. I think if if and when the vaccines are updated, particularly if youre in a group that is an inherently higher risk of bad outcomes, getting that vaccine makes sense, but there is still quite a bit that we have to learn the virus until it interacts with the human immune response the vaccines clearly offer the best protection from severe that we have currently and its hard to predict the direction that the virus is going to go in the future. I would just say very quickly of the things that were doing, one of the things that the National Institute of allergy Infectious Disease is doing and this has been highlighted by project next jim that was recently announced is thinking about can we develop you know through design deliberately vaccines that are broadly against know a wide array of and the kind of take the rapid of the virus the threat that that poses the table and were making its going to be a while before we deliver wholly new vaccines. The vaccines that weve got there right now are very effective. Thank you so much for that answered, dr. Hatchett. Ive got a another question here, patricia, out of all these reports with, lessons learned, what will really be enacted the next time with such a divided country . The tough part . Well, ill take that on, because the of course, the honest answer is we dont know. The were running an experiment is. Weve now provided a report that i think to degree others do not provides pretty practical guide of a lot of things to do. Its not like the government already knows these things and is not acting on the government internally, has not this kind of after action report. So help port now is available at levels of government and as that gets absorbed. Theres no way anyone can read this report and have it not affect their behavior or in their outlook. It just, i promise as so as that happens how going how are people going to react to that i will say right now mostly before the came out mostly the sense was of an impatience to turn the page and move on and talk about other things. The reason we rushed to get our report out when we did is we thought the window in which you can people to stop and think about lessons that window was closing and if we didnt get our report out that window my close and only academics would want to read about this. So now were that our reporters out, a number of people are talking about it, which is terrific. And now we, now well see the good news that a lot of really good stuff can be done without the whole country coming together, solving all our divisions. So this is not you dont have to have a utopian fantasy in which the drums and the flutes play. And democrats, republicans join hands. Dogs and cats live together and know thats not all. All that does not have to happen, really. There are all sorts things that can be done at all levels. Government and including in the private sector as people absorb a lot different lessons from this report im already hearing about initiatives that some people are planning inspired by a report on some of the data issues, some things best practices in hospitals systems. So so its its discouraging that more people are treating this pandemic fatalistic and assuming that nothing can be done but i think its too soon to give up i can add something. Philip is, really extraordinary at synthesizing and making the complicated, simple, which is what hes done in this. And it shapes our common of what we all came out of the fog of war like you know what do you make that and hes clarified a lot of these lessons and whether that goes into specific Government Initiative or not is almost beside the point sometimes because if we you know when you have a common understand thing, then were all pulling on the same or, you know, to effect change, you know, at all Different Levels of government and Civil Society and. I think this report really contributes that effort. If i could build on what is saying it, the report does a lot of what i think we would call a sense making and it does it through very succinctly telling the story from the inside on a number of issues. And so in it actually adds to the historical record, the interviews that were done. I mean, talk to people. I mean, there was not a partizan, you know direction of who we were interviewing. We were interviewing the people who were inside seeing what happened in understanding why things happened in the way that they did has to be the foundation for, you know, thinking about how we can improve outcomes in the future. Thank you so much to all of you for that. Much more hopeful answer. I appreciate that. So i it looks like we have a couple of minutes. Ive got a question myself, if you dont mind. I am curious about the title, but you chose for the book calling it the covid war is interesting, especially because i. I dont feel like in the midst of the pandemic it was really referred to as a war at least not amongst my peers. And so im curious, thats the title that was chosen. Thats so no, its a great point. There are people in health care who dont like the war analogies, but there are a number of members of our group really do like the war analogies. And heres why. Its kind of like people didnt understand that we had to muster the National Action that you would muster in wartime. You kind of have to get in a wartime. This was killing thousands of people day it cost us i thought we spent 5 trillion. So the calls you dont get a wartime mentality. You dont act fast and you dont develop world war like plans with the right sense of, urgency and bringing together the people to act. And thats thats the spirit that we wanted to animate by choosing that title, richard has been especially eloquent in kind of stress that when you get a situation like this, every day counts. I mean, this is literally economists sometimes, right . This is one of those rare cases where you spend billions to save trillions. Thats actually, not hyperbole. You can compare vaccination programs and literally. Its billions of dollars a day in forever, a single day that you delayed the development of medicines and vaccine so that you begin to get the sense of you know what we if you think act but if we were acting like we were going to war against this thing we would have done a whole lot better. I would just say that probably the biggest single of the us response in in my mind was operation warp. And it was the one aspect of the response that i came to as a study in Vaccine Development in the department of defense. But it was the one aspect of the response where i think we did engage a approach that was comparable to how we resourced and provided Logistics Support in our war experiences. And it was run mainly by the department of defense. And so partly kendall is stressing is, you know, if you wait till the war has already broken out before, you start acting before you start getting ready it youre going to lose that precious time and a great many people will die and sick and unnecessarily so youve got to adopt this National Security in peacetime to able to get ready for the war if we only think of aliens that can attack us, you know, and terrorists that kill a few hundred people and miss the microorganisms that can kill, were making a big mistake in the way we define secure. Think you so much for that answer. I that we have made it through of our questions for tonight. So i just want to thank you once again for the thoughts note in conversation, i learned a im sure that everyone here has. Did we have. Do any of you have any words before i do a little outro and and this webinar for tonight, i would say one thing, which is that we need to prepare for the next pandemic as if its really coming because it is. And everyone should buy the so that they can learn about covid and be prepared or that there is a link in the chart. Anyone interested in buying the book . Its also on our website at, harvard. Com. I just want to thank everyone for spending your evening or whatever time of day when on on behalf of Harvard Bookstore here. Cambridge, massachusetts. Please keep reading and be well and a good night to everyone. Thank you all so much thank you. Bye bye. To those of you joining us for the first time, welcome to those who have been with us since friday. This journey began. Welcome to the philip roth. Unbowed and our weekend long celebration. The life and legacy of novelist and newark native philip roth on the occasion of would have what have been his 90th birthday today in fact would have been philip roths 90th birthday so happy birthday, roth. My name is carey and im a coproducer of the along with jon schreiber, president and ceo of njpac. Rosemary steinbaum, a trustee of the newark public library. Chelsea keyes njpac, director of strategic initiatives. James shapiro, professor of english at columbia university. And bernard schwartz, director of Unterberg Poetry Center at the 92nd street y. Over the course of these past three days, weve been telling a story. On friday, that story was about newark or, as they apparently say here. Newark, one syllable not to a majority minority city whose, cultural, political and economic and triumphs have in many reflected the Greater National situation over the decades, expressed roths work and voices characters as dynamic and distinct as the citys five wards. Yesterday day we told a story about roth himself, about roth discovering himself a story of outrage, identity, absurdity, friendship, comedy, and of course sexual appetite. Today, on the festivals final day will tell a bigger story, a story that is in many ways about america itself. And about an artist whose gaze in his maturity to turn outward, whose preoccupations had evolved in. Roths later novels, we saw Nathan Zuckerman transform gradually from suburb act to narrator and become a writer no longer merely obsessed with what might happen in bed, but with what couldnt. Whose characters no longer lived exuberance but face their mortality with panic, dread, regret, and too many unanswered questions. Characters no longer wild with freedom, but with concern for protecting it. The idea for this particular conversation american berserk history, democracy and the relentless unforeseen came out of a lunch john. Rosemary and i had with todays moderator, sean wilentz last winter in princeton, sean served, as something of a personal historian for roth suggesting what to read when philip had questions or ideas discussing those books with him, offering his thoughts on how roth then expressed those ideas and events in his later novels. What struck me most was a remark sean made about roths historical consciousness. And i left that lunch fixated on the question of what it actually meant to historically, as a writer. I think that question is really at the heart of this conversation, which will certainly nod to the American American pastoral and married communists and the human stain. And of course, the plot against america. But well also explore more broadly something about roths concern for, the fragility of our democracy with, freedom writ large and of history itself as it forms and unfold in the moments we all actually and have it, whether we see it or not. And by the late books, it becomes more more clear that this american story was, one roth had been telling all along, whether lindbergh, nixon or trump, it was something perhaps born being a , an american , that roth had been worrying over from his earliest work or so a case can be made. I think what sean have meant and youll correct me by thinking historical has to do with with fluency so that what seems to a reader to be in works like pastoral plot is perhaps something more like pattern recognition remarkable not only for demonstrating how serious roth was about and capturing the american experience. But, of course, for the breathtaking roth somehow then expressed that sweep of historical forces through character. As a novelist joining us this morning to consider what it means to think historically why it matters for distinguished writers and thinkers. Daryl is the author of two novels, high cotton and black deutschland. Three collections of essays and memoir come back in september. Literary education on west seventh street, manhattan, which was published this past fall. Philip gourevitch, a longtime staff writer at the new yorker and former editor the paris review, is the author standard operating procedure. The ballad of abu ghraib a cold case and the award winning. We wish to you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families. Stories from rwanda Francine Prose is the author of more than 20 works of fiction, including the vixen and cleopatra. Her most recent works of nonfiction include the highly acclaimed and frank the book the life, the afterlife and the New York Times bestseller. Reading like a writer. Francine is distinguished visiting writer at bard and our moderator sean wilentz is the George Henry Davis 1886 professor of american history, princeton. His most recent study, property in man slavery, antislavery at the founding was recipient of the annual Thomas Cooley prize cooley book prize paris siegel, who is listed in your program as a participant today, was unable to join us so we apologize for that. Before we begin before we begin, a quick reminder. You can purchase copies of titles by all panelists and by philip roth outside the lobby where theyre being sold by newarks source of knowledge bookstore as. Our special festival posters designed by nel. During the conversation our ushers very important will be walking with notecards for you to submit any questions you might have. Well a q a at the end of this event and well our best to get to as many questions as we can. The ushers will be walking through at a quarter of 11 and at 11 00. Please have your ready and do. Please note. We still have tickets available. A few tickets, very few for todays nine. Actor nine chapter adaptation of the plot against america. So do be sure to visit the box office and now please join in welcoming our panelists. Thank you. Thank you. Carrie, its wonderful to be here with my friends, colleagues and there was that lunch in princeton. Actually, it was it was a lot of fun. And as i remember it, we were talking about phillips place and World Literature actually. And i came back to hawthorne and i kept thinking about hawthorne or i think about his relationship with, hawthorne and melville and not just, you know, call me smitty is a wonderful first line for any novel. But but but in a new order sense of historical, which both of them had and, of course he did, too, in a somewhat different way. And thats we just sort of took it there. Right. And were ending up here. So what is the way to start off . What i thought we do im going to read this off of my phone, but heres the book anyway, because i have to give a plug. Right . We have to give the plug. Its run the plot against america. Okay. And youll remember in the book, those of you whove read it, those are you havent probably heard about it anyway, the book is predicated the idea that Charles Lindbergh actually won the president ial election in 1940, thereby bringing more than a hint of fascism to American Life and how his family in newark. In newark, whenever they would have dealt with that. Okay. But that novel theres a line theres a passage which im going to read which says this sets as many questions because theres a lot of ways to think historical consciousness, actually, its not just one thing, but it it up in all its richness or much of its which is im going to read it now and then im going to turn to the panel and ask them to comment. It goes like this and is lindberghs election couldnt have made clear it to me the unfold leading of the unforeseen was everything to turned wrong way round the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied as history harmless history where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable the terror of the unfor. Seen is what the sides of history turning a disaster into an epic. Darryl. Do you have any thoughts you to share with us about that . I only if im forgiven for rambling rambling wouldnt sent that around. I was thinking is the charterhouse of parma an historical novel or is it a novel . But theres setting. Is it about, um, its only 20 years after the napoleon campaigns. It describes so when is when does something become historical is that a matter of reflection . Is there some narrative in the novel that. On the other hand. Whereas far from modernism as modernism was from romanticize ism so is the great gatsby history, we certainly read the fiction and learn something about the jazz age. We feel so the historical presence fiction. One of tome witness point of view or attitude. Gertrude stein said what good are roots if you cant them with you and . One thing about reading philip roth, is everything starts in newark. It doesnt start anywhere else. It starts in newark. The families starts in newark. The Second Chances for the immigrants start in newark. There is very little of this kind of past before pogroms or with pogroms, its always sort of newark and is thinking about. And the philip roth book, i still love the most, forgive me, is good bye columbus. And that day hes standing there. Yes. Is everything there that he is as a writer . All there, you know, sort of. Its just wonderful and i hes standing there wondering whos going to come after us, whos going to come after the people who came us, the , whos going to come after . And he hadnt seen the portuguese and the brazilians yet, but all of his right. Well, the writing ive read of philip roth has this historical sense because he comes from a people who need a historical sense. So well to pick up on what daryl was saying about what is a historical novel. I was thinking that like 95 of novels are historical novels and that they take place in history. I mean, mrs. Dalloway, is a historical novel because was injured in world war one in search of lost as a historical novel because dreyfus affair which is a historical event runs all the way through it but but difference is that with philips novels i think theyre about history in the sense that theyre about the moment history hits his characters like a truck so not theyre about history in the sense that history is is the thing makes the novel happen in a way that it doesnt necessarily other novels theres another line in american pastoral. I think that im probably going to misquote where says something like, im in retrospect, history happens slowly, but when its it happens very quickly. And thats certainly true in the plot against america. I mean. Lamb right from the beginning. So so that putting history not only as at the center, but as the drama forest that shapes the novel i think is what makes philip roths novels different from from many other from from all the other. I mean, beckett is not his whole story will novelists but but but most others and then philip roths are quite different i think. Okay. Yeah. I dont think of him as a historical novelist, but a novelist in history and conscious of it and that what hes interested in is this intersection between, as you say, the private and, the public life, you know, and i remember sort of talking to him about once and he was saying how say with with plot against america and with other things. He said, you know, the problem is when people start to tell me, like well, youre youve got this take on this or youre sort of telling us about some sort of a historical pattern or a political pattern, he said, i dont views i am not i as soon as somebody says that i dont recognize my work anymore, i am interested, as the novelist should be in specific data and am interested in that particular and in particular izing everything which seems to reduce it down from the general. But its to me the general obliterates all thats particular and he said you know with newark yeah it all comes from there. I didnt, he didnt really write about it for that period in the seventies, in the eighties and so forth. After patrimony he starts to come back and and hes he he said, you know when youre in your earlier decades up until at least 50 you think if you think youre absorbed yourself as a person and becoming person and what you are and later you suddenly how much thats shaped by where you were and he said travel made a difference with that going to london going to israel going to Eastern Europe and seeing how much people were both particular psychological human and individual selves and that interacted with some kind of a collectivized experience of that place. Time in historical circumstance and and if think about it that way it helped me understand what he was up to. Right. Its exactly what youre saying about how history slams into people. Its about those moments when the unforeseen. In other words, when when what will later be looked at as history helps reshape a life. And in his own case, he said, you know with plot. He said the biggest difficulty, the reason he abandoned it a few times along the way is because he he never really wanted write about a childs perspective. And in some ways this passage you read is the moment when it kind of explodes out of that because he takes the childs perspective to something larger. Its where the unforeseen comes in. But he said he was a happy child and his view and an exuberant sort of happy to be a newark boy played baseball every day, etc. And then the war was there and that became for him the first time that he saw that it affected the whole community somehow affected and how the emotions of war coincided with the emotions was you know that you have like at the beginning you have fear then you have defiance that youre proud of your country. Then you have this all these things that were out there that you think of as your own and then you start to see later in life as you look, the larger shapes that that kind of became the ambition of that later period. I want to pick up on, i also a hes asking who pays for this history . You know, i think thats a big part of late novels. What these characters rather anxious about what life amounts to and zuckerman being rather and thinking well it doesnt amount to anything i think that the question was also who pays and in the. The point the plot against america you know its that poor kid who gets shipped down to kentucky whos as heartbreaking as frank conroy, his best friend, and that kind of thing, who pays i married a communist who pays well, ira, american. Who pays the people who were bombed, i think, uh uh. And of down that way, um hmm. Oh i lost by that point to come back. Sorry. Well, thats why theyre novels. I mean not a history that because yeah, go ahead. You know in fact its something i read in the paper irritated me because i was going to say and anyway were so on systemic causes and structural causes, etc. And this one review was saying these concentrations take away our attention from personal agency and this is what novel does that it returns a sense of history as human drama a sort of man made that these forces are not necessarily faceless that they do. Yeah yeah well thats what we were i mean. We were talking earlier before the panel about what we remember and what we dont remember about books and and just the plot against america. I the pages of information about. Lindbergh in the pages of information about, the germanamerican bond go into your head and out of your head because partly we already know it or whatever. But what we remember are the scenes of philip getting locked in the bathroom and selden mother talking him down or poor calling from kentucky after mother has been killed and so forth and so its its what happens to the human beings that seems important to us and it sticks us. And the history is where it happens and why it happens but its not the excuse. Horrible word. Take away away meaning you didnt say you take out but you know but thats but but thats what i mean you could tell that was the heart of it for him that that those characters it is he he he was interested in that context to i mean he was interested in this i ran into him around 2016 at a gathering and it was, you know, right before after trump had been elected before the inauguration, though. And i said he he he sees me because what the hell is going on, right . Im a reporter so he sort of says it like that. Right. And i said, tell me you wrote the book on it. He said, i write anything about this which i which, i think, i mean, and i was like, yeah, but, but he didnt, he didnt write. He meant like, i wrote about that and what wrote about there was he had read a half sentence and arthur juniors memoir where it mentioned that there was no nothing wing of the Republican Party had wanted to nominate lindbergh and he thought, boy, they made a big mistake he would won hands down he said you know everybody says, oh, but he made that bad speech in des moines about the. He said that would have helped him he would he would have picked up all votes that lieberman lost for gore. He said, you know, this is how he thought like it was all alive for him. He hated lieberman with a passion. He did. Yeah. He said lieberman managed to lose even more votes by being jewish because of me and my friend russ miller. We wouldnt for him in connecticut he but he was he was very clear about like that sense that like heres unforeseen with trump even though of course he had a road map to it in some. Yeah isnt it eerie i mean rereading i think of us reread the book in preparation rereading it now and i kept looking back and saying wait, this was written in 2004 because for however math is not my strong point. 12, 12 years and the human stone. I think an even more in that sense much more descriptive our own time you know he did care about the context basically had me fact check all that stuff and not me actually i got it my most talent undergraduate to do it. Samantha williamson was her name. I want to give credit where credit is due since were on tv. But he cared immensely that because he didnt think that the character of it could really operate well without. His knowing that stuff without him, you know, he couldnt have himself reacting history unless he had the history. And it was much back there for him. I mean, i think i remember i got an email from him just after trump got elected saying he will suspend the constitution. Now, he wasnt saying that out of anything other than what had just happened, you know, he wasnt he wasnt he had some historical you know, he he wasnt human. Steyn, however, does i mean, i think human stain, the one that that he was capturing not just in the i mean theres so in that novel, but not just in the story that we all talk about, but in all of the characters because they still are alive. Delphine, ru see . Delphine ru i see 100 dolphin rooms every i go now, that is extraordinary because thats something you couldnt have called, but that he called out and he managed to put their it wasnt history so much but he was in a historical moment and he understood it just one that kept on going. I right well he writes about class and never tells you that he is. Yes. So its one of the things that makes his social landscape very real. When i first was aware of philip roth, you know, he was a kind of real bad boy. And i remember an early essay he wrote about criticism. He got for was it portnoys complaint and, you know, sort of not being respectful of the 6 million and all of this kind of thing made him very attractive to generation and also sort of spoke across tribal lines a way. And so the late touched me because theyre kind of reconciled especially that moment in the plot against america when the whole neighborhood is to the same radio broadcast, you know, from house to house to house, this kind of belonging or community. I found that passage a rather touching plot against americas not high castle, which i have not. But, you know, its a kind about its its about not so much about lindbergh as, about antisemitism in america, in youth. And that time and then following when people in the fifties still had to change their names to sort of get jobs or harvard still had quotas and things like that so i find a lot of his i to a lot of his. Work because he finds the whos an insider you know sweet as a kind of outside hitter but nobody had dreamt that he felt that way and then his daughter did this terrible thing so i found a lot of reconciliation in the late work as well as panic about age mortality and what has been the worth of what ive done and there are a couple of moments in the plot against america and then i also know the plot against america and american pastoral. And then and one of the others where zuckerman is hard on these ordinary guys, these, you know, these these guys who just work and sort this way. Theres a right way and a wrong way. And you do it this way. And hes very hard them when they wonder what it all amounts to. He you know but he also, i think, a kind of bravery that they stuck out they lived out their choices. And thats very hard in america. And then the last word of, the human stain is america. So i thought id look at his writing life. Its this project to make these people who were always outsiders, jewish to remind us that no, theyre americans. That i thought was a big part of his i dont know drive. I remember as a well grandmother that said somebody else want to because i have a question excuse the question. Part of the