I have guy with me a wonderful author writing a fantastic book john, you are a distinguished scholar and historian and have given us a book at exactly the right time we need in the midst of a pandemic. You have said your goal was to do a citizens guide what did you mean by that quick. Great question. I wanted to write a book that will be a first draft of history during the covid and beyond but would speak to an interested reader not just a specialist in the field there are a lot of specialist and my valueadded code be a translate to readers who are just fascinated by the blizzard of the legal issues that have arisen in the last six months that we were not on most peoples agenda until now. And we never thought about past epidemicsut we are now particularly what can weearn from them andhen do we know it will be over. But i want to beg at the end of your book and now i will back to ask you more about this questn. You wh america has two histories one is far more appealing in the mons and years ahead america will hold ou between them which hope they make the right choice. I will ask you more what the right choice is at the end of the interview but for now what is the elderly part of american what is the appealing part quick. That is where come o for me is a historical material of the o histories. Start with the ugly part a dreadful history of discrimination against racial minorities, sexual minoritie minoritiesthe poor. People without political clout on the losing side since the european arrival in north america it goe way back the way that disse through the long history of discrimination we need grapple with that covert has broug out think of the racial lead to the spread of facts and brings that history back. That is one central piece of the ugly side of the history. I cant have writt a book just about the ugly side i founso much material. Also contested politics the disease and that diseashad revealed certain inequities that was not as clear before the disease rendered evidence how poverty shapes those communities so throughout the 19 centuries we see progress to form designed to lift up those that are t poorest in the community. So that vision and solidarity holds a different kind o politics so both ofhose a stranger in our past and in our president and in the future i just dont know the tio will be. People of color or black americans over indians are those that have suffered four times greater hospitalizations of co food and nonwte populati you are right. Inerms of botry we have a president now who causes the on virus so the china is how does that play into bigotry . More opportunity for demagoguery going back and scapegoating but i think for example the farewell the robotic play again in San Francisco with those quarantine orders exclusively with the chise population that is an important case in our history to reveal som of the ways in which a particular popution have been scapegoated and with politicians interest. You talk about the case from san fncisco but also laid out thehineseAmerican Population tt was a local decision how do theyeed into e bigotry in terms of a pandemic in that intersection between scapegoating on the one hand in Public Health on the other. Its always dangerous for historian but this particular feature the Wilson Administration immediately after world war ii faced a pandemic to help mobilize troops and with the state and local officials struggling with Infectious Disease while the feds have a for a reason if this is the first pandemic the first line and history. And the aids epidemic is a pandemic still going on and this is somebody in the Bush White House with a big Emergency Program which is a great legacy for the United States and great us leadership for something that i thought was interesting is that reagan but he never mentioned aides but he didnt let again the way. He didnt criticize or castigate the Public Health agencies so to think it was unusual with a big Public Health agencies. And in particular and the rise of the modern presidency after the epidemics and pandemics and with an 19th century followed the 20th century and the return of Infectious Diseases has put 21st century incident in the 19 centuries setting and that is a new phenomenon has put 21st century incident in the 19 centuries setting and that is a new phenomenon because we are waiting for some really good treatments we are quarantining and Contact Tracing we get to the lockdown later on but and then to drill down you talk about the Police Powers and that sounds to conjure up a police state thats not t case. It is a misunrstood piece of hisry and trying to tell the real story it dsnt have anything to do with anyone in uniform essentially it is the basic fundamentalur to look out foits members as were talking about is the authority of local and state governments to make su their communities stay healthy and stay well. That is the police power and part of political communities like ours we have lo track of that over the course of history one of the wonderful things through research is to encounter the 17h century in the early 19th century a plethora of examples to organize themselves the health and welfare that is central to selfgovernment. So with Police Powers within a paragraph cicero the highest law of the land but that does suggest to me what you said is that government has no greater power or duty then to protect the health and security of our citizens theres a lot of things we can do for ourselves so the police power is important another important point in the United States because you point out who else up our so tell us about that in the public understands. And one of the peculiar features was at the federal government doesnt have the poce power it has enumerated powers listed in the u. S. Constitution and the police power li with the states and the bordinates of the local governments thats what we see and mayors over the last six or seven mths as a centr actor becausehe police power goes to the states is different from countries around the world. Of course the federal vernment does have certain limited powers with quarantine athe border and potentially to prevent the disease from going from state to state. One could even imagine they were more ambitious and contrary to the history then i president ial candidate there is a lot of discussion is american and federalism partly to blame . Per capita certainly in the top five worstperforming countries were certainly the top to and to have 50 jurisdictions plus hundreds of cities you cannot function that without a National Leadership has that been harder for and the states . It is hard to sayither way it is that historians vw to say its hard to say either way the government has a variety of powers could only in a very useful way to shape the response to the pandemic to help solve National Problems so for exame in the acquisition of ppe the federal government for the competiti but in a moment in a pandemic there is a regional variation so the capacity to have differing rules is quite uful and if we do that from the top of the bottom there are pluses and minuses to make tt judgment. As our listeners will remember weave states competing and that seems to be so counterproductive to the societies around the world that it performs very well and some are not so well one of the things on top of a lot of peoples mind former fda commissioner where he called for a National Mask mandate and biden has himself i wrote an article in the Journal American Medical Association to say the president has the power to do that and even with congress to those powers testify to we get more uniformity than other protective and preventive mechanisms we try to promote. And it is the ability to put the power of the president to encourage that is where the federal executive branch and there will be nice and complicated questions about of congress has the authority to impose the mask mandate and those targeted mask mandates and interstate transportation according to traditional standards i think there are political constraints of Congress Wants to be in the business of mandating National Mask mandate when i can be done effectively at the state level is my own inclination and that ihink be left to states maybe for clear ssaging tt may be the track if evebody is masked up whether that will happen in the United States i dont kno that imy next set of questions talk about various positions in the United States from the colonial period right on through to all of the epidemics and covid19 and you talk about a real fight between individual rights on the one hand and the common good Population Based telephone the other. Most of us think that you say in the book and then go on to refute this historically that america is a place of rugged individualism and it does seem that way now how you responded to covid19 with the Asian Countries but all about good dividualists in the cntry. The virus brings ou rugged individualism and then to understand that quit porfully in the 17 nineties to die of yellow fever we he 1 percendying of covid in the lastix months 10 percent of philadelphia died the federal gernment in th17 nineties during yellow fever so i grew up with this but to deal with Infectious Disease and collective authorities to help communities furnishes the alternative we had a mess in the country that freedom comes from the government staying out and in moments of epidemics it comes from working collectively to give us all the resources to help us flourish. That goes deep through american and history. Of course younow me and that speaks to my hea. I totally age with you but there are others that say Civil Liberties matter more than the generalociety from the civilibertarian to be head of the british aclu and on the board here and now here i am are common goo as you seem to be but how do we get the balance right . Where can we draw the line had we know its the right line . I think there is a thread in court cases on just thi point to have a tradion of courts reviewing Public Health cisions and insisting baby rational and nondiscrimitory to proceed with e Democratic Authority of our legislature and that is the way that is overseen to prevent epidemics without ever readiness of those on the supported individual rights interfere with the block those measures and that come so strongly the jacobson case that standfor the proposition that seek to mandate the members of the American Population to want to be vaccinated or not to have a medical reason or not . Its a gray juste on the supreme crt and that case announces our freedom depds the ability to move together and ptecturselves but it dont stop there and observes there might be some situations arbitrary will come to administer the vaccini understood on understand that with the Supreme Court to say we will oversee employees and manage vaccinerograms in the future not to assert our preferences or the city of cambridge of the state of massachutts but to make sure that is a glorious and important tradition. If you think that will hold up with a conservative majority on the Supreme Court with justice. On the court there is a lot of the conservative scholars thats a bad deference to Public Health doesnt fly in relation with religious liberties and economic liberties but just general sense now whether or not jacobson will be the best in this last decade but i think predicting how nine people behave as a fools errand jacobson is a charter of civilization is like authorizing a military draft. And in the international sense to survive they have to do what is required and the world on military draft could have a narrow conscience the judges are in a really good position and similarly the pandemic could take the steps to mandate that vaccine it is indispensable. I love your term charter of civilization and i agree entily with the civilized and Healthy Nation as a collective to protect each other with the commo good and no better example is the epemic response so you have separate chapters on those so called satirist so what do you mean by that . That is the book and sohere are we now . Great questions. The history of Public Health literature tells the story of two different traditions one is harsh quarantine throughout lines and boundaries and that is the quarantine tradition to those epidemics in the past and the alternative to measure that disease comes not from infection among people by environments and managing environments is a better way than quarantine. In the book i use sanitation and quarantine as synonymous of approaches on the one and and on the other that runs through european history and all over the world. I wouldnt think about lockdowns we certainly saw the great influenza pandemic occurred you have ever imagined that new york or los angeles or beijing london would be locked down even with your experience with yellow fever and smallpox . Was that surprising. And itook me by surprise i am born in the year tha th were still not getting people for smallpox. I was born february 1972 so i have the inoculations will but those at the endf the year do not. So my lifetime has until now been easy to understand the. Leverage of the disease but those that knew the same. Of the slow reemergence of Infectious Diseases so tune you imagine to bin a lockdown situation maybe we could have anticipated it the United States is a mix tradition we are pt of the quarantines and we had both of the threats running through our history. Relatively rarely like the travel lockdown so all of these things had converged. But we talked a little bit about the quarantine and closing down big cities and countries. If you and so to control the bodies of people know course that power comes with a huge risk that might be our fundamental dilemma that power is indispensable and also incredibly risky. This is true of human collective living together incredibly risky and indispensable there are no other choices we need to find a way to muddle through. Thats great i love the way basically quarantine is part of a civilization that we need and we need to live together so quarantine goes back centuries. What about Contact Tracing . And Global Health now for many decades and all of a sudden everybody is a Public Health expert. Like Contact Tracing or social separation now Contact Tracing does with American History and with circulation and with those previous useof Contact Tracing or the benefits. We are interested with the history. And the last halfcentury an idea the Civil Liberties and Public Health my into tether and then to ensure that they get sick to identify themselves and new technologies are coming online and we are at the junction of the cil liberties cld be contingent on a particular time in history and the Contact Tracing and then and now we can do with her phones that means that power to store it but they have complicated reactions a also in the new form. But it has all sorts of scary features i was going to get into the electronic tracing but first but now its 20th century but with these location app apps, china, taiwa south korea and even in eope have used because were worried about privacy so why is america not embraced more complex and and then her is the job but its about building of the capacity of the state to have things mom and to do the work and to have the cost to find and attracting and that requires people and stay on dash state to bring that capacity i am lucky enough and those that have been able to connect people to students i have had but we all have that capacity so the one thing this pandemic is presenting the United States with is the value of state capacity. And they started on behalf of the numbers. And to have a stronger Public Health infrastructure. And then to speak of technology how the world has changed with all the globalization and the travel one the core differences not only social media but conspiracy theories around the covid19 vaccis the whole range. Lot of this information and good health and then that part of america has a different set of facts and another part. This is a historical and with those investors really in new york and they were persuaded and then sometimes i have lied to people that is part of our history. And then to start the program is Public Health and those experiments running for four decades in which africanamerican men were experimented on what syphilis would be. B americans know about that historynd that makes it harder toome back the only substitute for rampant consracy theories is trust guided against expertise and we are at a low moment for that. And we have to figure out how to reeablish that trust the cdc went to establish trust for decades world respected institution based in atlanta that was quite important to the tradeoff withrivacy and liberties to talk specifically to be very important with covid and the Supreme Court starting with religious liberty d the idea for v