Dr. Atul Gawande,
welcome to The Daily Social Distancing Show.
Great to be here.
You are coming to us from Fenway Park,
one of the many stadiums and arenas
that are gonna be used as vaccination sites
around the country.
How is the rollout looking?
You know, America's been in an interesting place
where it seemed like everything was going well,
and then all of a sudden, there weren't enough vaccines,
and then there were too many in some places.
What does it look like on the ground right now?
Well, I'm part of a consortium
that's been running vaccine operations to scale
at Gillette Stadium, Fenway Park,
Reggie Lewis track and field here in Roxbury,
and those have escalated.
You know, we had to start at a few hundred a day.
We're past 5,000,
uh, across all of these sites per day,
and that will just keep on scaling upward.
Um, and, so, I think that our problem with distribution
will gradually get better and better.
The two problems that remain. Number one, you point to supply.
Um, how much can vaccine get pumped out?
It's a big deal that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine
was submitted for, uh, consideration
-by the FDA just last Friday. -Mm-hmm.
And that will potentially bring more supply.
The other big concern is equity.
We are not getting to the, uh,
the-the people of color and the rural settings,
which have had some of the worst rates
of, uh, of spread.
And, uh, and br... And bringing those people in
has got to be a high priority now.
Let's talk a little bit
about your article in The New Yorker.
You've written for The New Yorker for many years,
and now more than ever, people are reading your writing
through a different lens.
Uh, your most recent article
is entitled "Don't Tell Me What to Do."
And it focuses on a really fiery town hall meeting
in a small town in North Dakota.
Why did you think it was so important
to focus on a fight happening in a small town in North Dakota,
and what do you think that tells us about the larger story
about America, its vaccine rollout
and social distancing rules and masks, et cetera?
Last November in North Dakota,
uh, that was the site of the...
That was the state with the largest rate of infections,
the largest rate of hospitalizations,
and deaths were, uh, deaths were climbing.
And Minot was the hottest
of the hot spots in that state.
And, so, what I want to understand
is how does a community in the midst of all of this,
uh, react?
And, you know, the state had resisted
having any kind of a mask mandate.
-Mm-hmm. -There continued to be battles over the basics.
And, so, this city council had a member--
uh, her name is Carrie Evans--
who said, "You know what? I'm just sick of it.
"I'm going to propose a mask... a mask mandate
and force it to vote."
And what unfolded was this debate.
It was a... Really, it reflected a city,
a townwide debate
over whether the government could tell me what to do
when we aren't willing to do it.
And would that work?
Uh, they-they fought it out.
It was closely voted,
but they did adopt the mask mandate.
Um, and that was only the beginning.
People ignored the mask mandate after it was adopted.
Uh, it didn't have any penalties associated.
But then hospital leaders started coming out and saying,
"Our hospital is completely overrun."
-Wow. -And you see in place after place
is a story like this where we're late
in coming to realizing what needs to be done.
But in the face of what becomes
just a terrifying bubble of a viral transmission.
Uh, Carrie Evans said it was like steam.
You-you go to the store,
and you felt like it was this steam.
You know there are infected people
walking around the store,
and that was, um, uh...
that was the world they were in.
You're a doctor, and so that means
you are in the world of convincing people
that medicine can and will help them.
You're also in the world of listening to people's concerns
about why they're afraid to participate
or not participate in taking a medicine or not.
There's a more interesting dynamic conversation
happening right now in and around America's schools.
Many parents want their kids to go to school.
Many teachers are saying, "We can't go back
into the schools unless we're vaccinated."
The CDC has come out and said
teachers don't need to be vaccinated
to be at school with these kids.
Where do people stand? Because it feels like
there's so much contradictory information.
Are the kids a threat to the teachers? Are they not?
Can the teachers survive without getting a vaccination?
What should we be listening to,
and what is the voice of reason in the room?
Well, you know, in many ways,
this is what I was trying to unpack,
even in Minot, North Dakota, 'cause I spent a lot of time
with the people on the other side of the argument,
the people who said... who said...
A-And what you hear, whether it's teachers
saying they don't want to go back to school
because of fear of the virus
or others who say, "I don't want to fear the virus.
Get rid of the masks,"
what you have is a tremendous amount of pain.
I mean, the level of pain that you see in the country...
The people I were t... I was talking to
who said they don't want to wear the masks
are the people who are feeling like
their jobs are disappearing,
and they're seeing it happen.
They are seeing their kids not being able to go to school.
Uh, they've seen 'em lose a whole year of,
you know, a real robust education.
-Right. -And so I understand where folks are coming from.
At the same time, this is the battle.
We have to argue it out.
And, ultimately, the science is on the side of saying,
yes, we can return to the schools.
Let's bring testing in, and that can help provide reassurance.
Yes, we can defeat this virus,
but you have to wear the masks.
And that means curtailing things like your favorite bar
-or being out here at Fenway Park. -Mm-hmm.
But-but we are making our way through it.
It is tremendously hard to keep your foot on the pedal
for what are gonna be months to come.
We are gonna slip.
We're going to have this battle and debate,
and it's gonna-- it's just gonna continue.
And this is the nature of our democratic fight over that.
Yeah. It's gonna be a fight.
It looks like we're still in the middle of it.
And, um, hopefully, we're not just in the eye of the storm
but we're emerging from it.
Um, Dr. Gawande, thank you so much for taking the time,
and, uh, good luck with your efforts out there at Fenway.
Thank you.