How the coronavirus pandemic is changing the world Fareed Zakaria

pleasure to be here cross free let’s

start by getting a sense from you of how

you think of this thing that’s happening

now you’ve covered so many disasters

over the years how do you rate and think

of this one well I think this is a more

dramatic more global and more unusual

than anything we have seen in a long

long time because first you have the

healthcare crisis a pandemic that is

spread across the world and with unknown

lethality and unknown consequences and

that is raging as we speak through the

world but then has come an economic

reality which has become more and more

acute which we were just hearing about I

think it’s not right to call this a

recession or even to talk about a Great

Depression this is sort of a great

paralysis because for the first time

that I can think of in recorded human

history you have had a literal

standstill of the major economies of the

world large parts of the major economies

of the world which have literally just

stopped functioning the basic principle

of economic exchange is not happening

because human beings are not in

proximity with one another and therefore

cannot engage in that so you are seeing

a simple paralysis of that which is much

deeper I think at least in the short

term then even the Great Depression then

you get the result of what this does in

poor countries because so far we have

just talked about what is happening in

rich countries and now you get to the

India’s of the world and there you have

the problems I described except these

countries or cash poor budgets trained

in budget terms have poor health care

systems and have a lot of overcrowding I

mean think about the slums of a place

like Mumbai or Calcutta or Nairobi

and then you add to this the geopolitics

that is going to come to play as

everybody draws in whereas yes everybody

becomes more nationalist the most

powerful expression of that is of course

the European Union which has been the

celebration in the pooling of

sovereignty and what has happened in

Europe is almost all the countries in

the so-called visa-free zone the

passport-free zone the Schengen area

have reimpose borders for the first time

in decades and when Italy asked the

European Union which fellow European

members for help

oh the 26 other countries to send them

medical supplies and things not one said

yes do you have any picture in your mind

about how you think this will play out I

mean if it’s a unique situation a lot of

people are hoping that it’s a relatively

short economic shock we beat defeat the

virus we somehow managed a careful

return to work and life returns to

normal is that fantasy thinking I don’t

think it’s fantasy thinking a lot

depends on on how short that the the

shock is and I do think there’s some

hopeful signs that we’re seeing we can

get into that the data has been very

very interesting and it’s changing fast

if it’s short I think you could see a

return to some degree of normalcy but I

think it’ll be very hard to just restart

the economy because you know what what

you realize is that modern economies are

like riding a bicycle on steroids you

know the old line about riding a bicycle

you have to keep moving forward when you

stop it’s not like you can just pick up

where you were think about a restaurant

your credit lines have collapsed your

workers in many cases have you know they

have lost their livelihood may have gone

back to the place they came from may

have found another job but out of

desperation public attitudes will not be

exactly the same particularly for close

contact businesses like restaurants and

so you know because you’ve had a

disruption of supply and demand at the

same time

it’s not going to be that easy to

restart and that is why the government

is correctly getting very involved and I

have to say on this front the American

government seems to be doing more than

most other governments there are a lot

of areas where you can say the American

government has been has been has

performed abysmally but on the economic

front with all the partisanship in in

Washington it is actually properly in

the Federal Reserve as a part of that is

properly reacting to the kind of

historic nature of this so I think if

it’s a short shock we might get back to

some degree of normal though there will

be industries like travel and

restaurants and theaters maybe sports

that will have a much longer time

timeframe if we get a vaccine when we

get a vaccine I tend to on that front be

a little bit more historically minded by

this you know if the Spanish flu that

killed multiple multiple multiple times

as many people in percentage terms as as

this one will likely if that didn’t kill

restaurants and theaters and and sports

I’m not sure this well I I think we

should we that people are painting a

picture of a world where there will

never be restaurants and they will never

be movie theaters and there will never

be you know gatherings of any kind

I don’t know human beings alike to be in

contact with one another well though I’m

sure that the last pandemic in the

Spanish flu killed many businesses and

eventually they came back in DIF it’s

it’s it’s it’s almost hard to separate I

mean what’s clear is there’s gonna be

just massive amounts of tragedy massive

numbers of people who may have seen

their life savings evaporate if they

even ever hadn’t you know maybe

struggling on the breadline right right

now and and yes some kind of life will

be come back we I let’s let’s let’s talk

let me just say let me just say one

thing or one thing about what you said

Chris because it’s so important I think

so many of the people who are who we

deal with or live in a digital economy

in which they can work from home their

jobs in large part can can

continue in some way or the other okay

maybe you lose some business but you

know there is a much greater degree of

stability but for the vast majority of

people who are losing their jobs they’re

losing their jobs because they’re what

can’t be digitized and I think it’s it’s

important to recognize this is creating

its own kind of new inequality an

equality between the digital economy and

the and the the material economy between

knowledge workers and non wallet workers

which maps on rather Eunos tragically in

similar ways to the old inequalities in

which people with again with who had

knowledge workers did well and people

who were working with their hands did

not yeah absolutely and it’s it’s I mean

the only thing only piece of hope I can

see from that is that so many people

have developed this newfound

appreciation for the amazingness of the

work of people they didn’t spend enough

time thinking about you you see you know

people talking with great gratitude

about their delivery man or the woman

who who you know that for their once a

week visit to the grocery store if they

could manage that or and so forth and

these people are heroes as a works on

the front line question is it’s almost

like is there any chance juice any

chance that that kind of attitude will

survive this that will hold on to that

and somehow reframe the priorities in

our economy the people who we think

should be compensated more perhaps and

just how we all think of each other is

much more interconnected than we know or

do we just forget about this after a

month of things kind of going back to

normal I hope we do and I think some of

that depends on people like you and me

you know who do have a role in shaping

public dialogue in public memory not to

make sure that it doesn’t get forgotten

and that we do remember that you know

we’re all in this together you know I

often think about that when you when

you’re dealing with people in countries

like the United States who are poor who

don’t vote who don’t write op-eds you

know how do you make sure that that

perspective

and that voice is remembered the

unfortunately the structural reality is

that you know the the digital economy

will do even better out of this recovery

because people will learn that they can

you know buy groceries online when they

might have not you know wanted to do

that before hand and the little

mom-and-pop store on the street corner

might might lose more business as a

result of it so it’s it’s all the more

reason to try to remind people that

we’re all in this together so right now

every country on the planet has this

horrible dilemma as to how aggressively

you shut things down and and then how if

at all how to bring things back give us

your sense for read on which countries

have done a good job of managing that

dilemma and and which really haven’t so

far I think it’s actually pretty easy to

tell or right now the data is we have

enough information that we can say that

quite definitively you know obviously

there may be second waves and third

waves but so far it is not the case that

dictatorships have done this better than

democracies that is not the dividing

line the dividing line is places that

have effective government that have

depended on experts and acted early so

that the key the key countries that have

done well have been the ones in East

Asia and that’s China which actually

comes across in many ways worse than

some of the others but because it was a

very slow start it hid the data it lied

about it but then when it got finally

realized it was serious they they

handled it very well but the countries

that really come across well are

Singapore South Korea Taiwan Hong Kong

and what they did in South Korea is

really probably the model country is

they acted very early they developed

their own test the minute the the DNA

was sequence was published and then they

went out and did mass testing mass

testing and contact tracing because the

most important thing you need to

understand is how many people have this

disease so that you can understand where

what parts of

economy what whom to isolate him not to

isolate things like that so you know

because without that you’re really

flying blind and what South Korea was

able to do was really do the the most

sophisticated kind of testing which is

random sampling so you know me because

what we’re doing just think about how we

are arriving at something like our

fatality rate how many people died we

only know the people who test for kovat

want the base to the people who fall

sick are sick enough that they go to a

hospital or a clinic and the hospital

clinic says okay your symptoms are close

enough to what we think

Kove it is and we’ll we’ll test you for

it and those are the people we test

which of course means there are lots of

me we now know lots of people who have

mild symptoms who get over it think it’s

a code all those people don’t get

counted the South Koreans did all of

that they have achieved the most in some

ways the most impressive results in in

the world without a national lockdown

without shelter in place without

quarantines they have occasionally

selectively done it for a specific you

know with with a bar bars in one area or

things like that but that’s really I

think the world should look at that

example because they have achieved it

without shutting down the economy it’s

almost like the the watchword for a

future pandemic is can you avoid it

getting out of control and only a few

countries have done that when you can

still be in this containment mode of

basically being able to track every

known case that is completely different

from the mode of it’s out of control we

can’t possibly track down everyone so we

just have to shut everything down and

that’s when the massive economic damage

and so forth kicks in so just it almost

still in some ways this crisis plays to

America’s weaknesses rather than to its

strengths the United States has many

strengths but it is a chaotic

disorganized messy noisy country right

and it slow to stir to action but once

it stirs to action you know over time it

accomplishes a lot this is the sort of

this is Churchill’s famous line

the United States is you can count on

the United States to do the right thing

after it has exhausted every other

alternative so what this well you know

unfortunately for exactly the reason you

say this is a crisis where early action

helps enormously you know because it

because of the nature of exponential

growth if you catch it early it makes a

big difference unfortunately the United

States did not do that are there any

countries in Europe I mean many

countries in Europe also kind of bunched

what what happened certainly when you

compare that what happened in some Asian

countries are there any other impressed

you yes Germany is Germany is actually

close to South Korea in how well it is

handled it started a little bit later

has all has put in place children you

know stay stay at home policies and

social distancing partly because I think

it it got a slightly slower start

Denmark has done very well as doing

random testing and as a result you’re

seeing the Danes are beginning to open

up the economy I think that Iceland is

doing is doing well again trying to do

the Ted you know what you notice about

all these are places where the

government is respected its well funded

the bureaucracies get good people those

people are able to exercise a lot of you

know power and and discretion mmm

Whitney so I’m we’re seeing a lot of

questions online hi there for read about

the negative impacts on the economy and

our lifestyle which are things that

we’ve been hearing often but can you

speak to some of the the positive things

you see coming out of business it

relates to work opportunities that our

economy the lifestyle the way that we

have been doing things what do you see

as positive outcomes of this disruption

well let’s let’s not minimize the

negative because I think that probably a

lot of people there who are feeling pain

and who are experiencing massive

dislocations in their lives and I think

it’s important to recognize that it’s

important for the government to help to

treat this as a kind of disaster relief

program not as a traditional stimulus

you know this is a case where frankly

the government

force these businesses for

understandable reasons but force these

businesses not to operate or force these

people not to go to work and it is

incumbent on the government to provide

assistance now what are the

opportunities unfortunately they’re

mostly in the digital realm right I mean

you’re going to you’re going to see a

lot your people are finding ways to be

able to do things digitally that they

didn’t you know where they were

previously doing it in other ways

meetings you know everything can be done

you you’re you’re going to find ways to

be more productive than you had to do

look I mean one one piece of this I

think about is maybe we all travel too

much maybe there are ways to achieve to

do a lot of meetings without having to

do the con you know so many of us go

travel a lot it’s probably bad for the

environment it’s not great for your your

family life and so maybe there is a kind

of an ability to just step back and say

you know that we could have a different

kind of life we could have we could

achieve a certain amount in other ways

but I but I do want to stress you know

this is this is very tough on a lot of

people and it’s and unfortunately I

think the part we are going to find more

difficult than people are imagining is

that restart button you know you’re not

going to just push a button and get the

economy going again for if you think

that the Indian government got it right

in in what they did because the dilemma

for them is different from elsewhere

you’ve got the virus coming but you also

have your economy is powered by people

who who make no money and and and as as

we heard earlier the potential hardship

that some of them face is is this a case

where the Cure literally might be worse

than the disease you know it’s a very

tough question and it’s a very tough

challenge I would have hated hated to

have been in Prime Minister Modi’s shoes

clearly what was animating that decision

was this India was an early enough stage

that if you acted quickly

again because of this exponential growth

you could achieve something significant

and most importantly India has one of

the lowest beds per capita in the world

you know it has a it has a very

two-tiered healthcare system for the

rich it’s it’s one class but

particularly in rural India it’s it’s

really quite inadequate and so there was

an under than knew that if this got out

of control it was going to crash the

healthcare system in a very big way so

they made the decision they did as often

with Prime Minister Modi he takes

decisions but then takes them you know

there’s a kind of weird impulsiveness so

he gave the country you know one point

four billion people four hours from 8:00

p.m. to midnight to prepare and this is

a country in which here fifty to sixty

million migrant workers who are working

in cities but live hours and hours away

this is a country in which is you say

most businesses conducted face to face

it seems like you could have done you

could have given people I would have

said you know give them five days or

three days to prepare for this but at

the end of the day I think I understand

the the decision Prime Minister Modi

made it is an attempt to say look we’re

going to suppress this as much as we can

keep the numbers very low and then when

we open up we have the opportunity to do

some of this testing and tracing I hope

they’re using these three weeks to

really ramp up mass testing because if

you’re not you know this is what the

United States did with the we’d put the

ban on China which was the right thing

to do ban on travel from China but then

we didn’t take advantage of those three

weeks to do anything what’s your

diagnosis of why the US didn’t do that

it’s easy to blame Trump and clearly

displayed to Trump’s weaknesses

he doesn’t believe in experts he doesn’t

believe in science he’s impulsive all

all he cares about is the stock market

and he worried that this would in some

way interfere with it with its rise he

doesn’t like bad news he pushes it away

but you know it’s worth noting that he

even dr. Anthony Fauci gave in

views in which he said this is not

really likely to be a concern for the

United States so I think the way I would

describe it is I think what happened is

initially people looked at what happened

in China and they thought because of

what the Chinese had done it would stay

contained in China with a little bit of

leakage what they didn’t realize was

maybe that the Chinese had allowed

international more international travel

or they had locked down on domestic

travel and so they were sort of

under-reacting a little bit to what what

was the real nature of the problem when

it then came to Italy Italy was the

pivotal moment I think when it explodes

in Italy and that’s when everyone starts

panicking and you could even argue that

maybe there was a slight overreaction

and that’s why you started seeing models

that said two to three million people

would die because people started using

the Italian data which i think is very

it’s very complicated because Italians

are the over your second oldest

population in the world very high

incidence of smoking very close

intermingling into intergenerational

living and it may not be representative

but but I think that’s what happened

free talk about just that the partisan

divide in so many countries and how you

see this virus impacting that I mean

yourself you know you work from CNN it’s

regarded on the right as as hopelessly

liberal you’ve been criticized by people

on the right you just criticized Trump

right now and so you’re right in the

middle of this constant firestorm of of

you know partisan battering is there and

yet you you also spoke about some key

things that the administration may have

got right here in terms of or at least

in partnership of Congress got right in

terms of the stimulus that socially been

greater than in other countries do you

see coming away from the actual policy

bit for a minute but just us talking

with each other talking with people

around the country and around the world

is there any way that this moment

somehow

you since the partisan design divider is

actually just ramping it up to ever more

intense levels of the people who are

disgusted by Trump and what he’s done

are probably more disgust and angry now

than they have ever been and maybe the

people who disgust her the people who

are disgusted at Trump feel more

strongly than ever is that is that is

there any end to this or are we just in

for I don’t know in the US for example

the bloodiest election of all time and

and and just in a possibly painful

aftermath can there be any kind of path

to both national unity and then you know

international connection out of this I

must go on behalf of a friend many

friends you know I wish I could give you

much solace but it’s been striking

hasn’t it that if you go to if you look

at this last month and a half what is

most striking is how little Donald

Trump’s approval ratings have moved so

if you look at you know other periods

and what these kind of national crises

what tends to happen is the president’s

approval ratings go way up you know a

george HW bush after the fall of the

berlin wall George W Bush after 9/11

even Jimmy Carter the first months of

the hostage crisis when the Iranians

took American hostages his numbers went

up because there’s a rally around the

flag it did happen for Trump for

something like ten days and he’s now

back to approval rating such a roughly

the same as where they were before so in

other words what is striking about

Donald Trump’s approval ratings as a

symbol for the partisan divide is how

little they have moved one way or the

other so it’s that his supporters

support him no matter what it’s his

opponents dislike him no matter what and

you’re right it’s very hard to to bridge

those divides look I try very hard to

approach things from an analytic rather

than a kind of polemical or partisan

perspective so as you say when if the

administration does something right I

try to give them credit for it I I will

point out I get pilloried on both sides

by the way the the right doesn’t you

know doesn’t accept the that the credit

and the Left accuses me of being a

traitor but my view is I’m

I’m a journalist I I’m trying to be oh

not objective no one is objective I’m

trying to be analytic and that’s my job

so for example I’ll give you one example

I’ve been looking a lot at the testing

data and it does appear that we have

very bad data that we really need to get

much better testing data and that the

initial new data that we are getting

that that on the basis of the more the

more and more data we’re getting it is

it does look like the fatality rates are

much lower than we thought in other

words that this disease might not be as

fatal and what I find is when I talk to

people everyone’s trying to figure out

in their heads does that mean that this

is good for Trump is this bad for Trump

is this what do you know where should I

position myself on this and my feeling

is this is just a you know a factual

matter and more importantly we need to

have the best data we need to know what

the actual fatality rate is whatever

then you know be mistakes people made in

the past whatever the model said but

it’s very difficult to even take

something like data and completely

unhinge it from the partisan context in

which everything is now viewed and that

is part of a much larger discussion

about how we have entered a realm of

really a tribal identity politics where

are our political views reflect us

something very deep about our identity

and therefore very hard to change

they reflect who we are

socioeconomically they reflect who we

are culturally they reflect who we are

in terms of our friends circle where we

live so it’s as you know mere data is

not going to change that to take any

solace from the fact that scientists are

gaining in credibility and is it

possible to imagine that in the in the

coming years that people will actually

pay more attention when scientists tell

us that there’s something big about

coming we ought to pay attention to it I

would hope so I mean I hope it makes us

realize that in general we are you know

I remember Michael Gove the British

Minister one of Boris Johnson’s

associates saying during the brexit

campaign the British public has had

enough with experts and I remember

thinking

the time you know when Michael Gove gets

ill I’m assuming he goes to a doctor it

doesn’t consult you know you know some

guru or some or some that something like

that he goes to somebody who’s trained

and has expertise in the field and those

are to evaluate data and I think what

we’re realizing here isn’t that

situations like this with all the

caveats and with all the complications

you need experts you need to rely on

them and as you say criseyde what I hope

is that it develop

we have a slight live you know that it

translates that if you believe the

science and you and you trust the

scientists and you think the data is

getting better on this issue well maybe

when they talk about climate change we

should also be keeping in mind that the

same thing is true and again that the

data has been proving and reproving and

confirming what they’ve been saying for

twenty years now

indeed let’s wrap up with another

question from from Whitney and our

online audience sure the audience is

very interested in what you’re sharing

here for read and there’s one question

that’s really I’m simple which is just

how do you see this changing I can’t

hear you

I let me I should keep going Whitney

because I can hear you and I will be the

translation here that strain that sounds

perfect a little workaround yeah the

question is just simply how do you see

this changing the balance of power

globally so the question was how do you

see this changing the balance of power

globally I think again if so much

depends on how short this this process

is and what it does but I’ll tell you

one of the first things that I’ve been

seeing when I’ve talked to people all

around the world when you read newspaper

accounts of what is happening everyone

has been stunned at the degree of chaos

in the United States and the degree or

you know the degree to which the health

care system has proven to be inadequate

we don’t even know how many beds we have

we don’t know how many ventilators we

have and that is I think it’s a serious

blow to America’s image because people

would think that the United States might

not be you know the most beneficent

power it may not

you know it may do things that they

would regard as crazy like invade Iraq

but they always thought the American

economy was the best the American

technology was the best and so most

people assumed American healthcare would

be would be great I think what they saw

was the crazy quilt patchwork of the

American healthcare system with federal

state local authorities competing if you

know people don’t even have the right

data so that piece of American soft

power if you will the example of

American power has taken a beating the

second and perhaps more important issue

is that it’s not so much what it does to

American power it’s what it does to the

idea of common interests and and common

objectives and common common policies so

what has happened as I mentioned is

everyone has retreated and it is

pursuing things from their narrow

self-interest whether it’s the Italians

the Germans the Chinese the South

Koreans and of course the Americans it

is the biggest the greatest damage to

the system is done by the Americans

because we have traditionally been the

world’s leaders the organizers and

things like that so but everywhere you

are seeing a fraying of that

international order a fraying of that

sense of cooperation a fraying of the

idea that there are common objectives

the scientists to be and to be give them

credit are working together the

scientists have been sharing information

American scientists Chinese scientists

and you hear this everywhere European

scientists if only the politicians could

mirror the scientists to me this there’s

a kind of tragic irony here which is

this is a global this is a classically

global challenge right we are all in it

together we face a common foe and we

face and this is almost biblical in its

nature we you know this is this would be

the time to unite because this is a

virus that does not discriminate on the

basis of national boundaries on the

basis of skin color on the basis of

wealth we’re all in it together and

therefore if we pool our resources and

we would try to get a vaccine try to get

a cure try to time the openings and

closings the quarantines the reopening

zuv travel all

that would have happened much more

effectively it would be a win-win-win if

we could see that this is a global

challenge been there for it would it

would it necessitates a great global

response but at that the same time

because of the nature of this challenge

because it involves our health our

security perhaps we’ve become very

narrow-minded and and drawn in I’m

hoping that after the initial shock goes

away people will realize that you know

there really are such enormous benefits

here to cooperating to doing this

together to working with other countries

and that at the end of the day what

we’re all looking for is health safety

security so you know I’m an optimist so

I do hope that at some point it we

awakened this sense that you know and

you think about the United States we’ve

spent seven hundred billion dollars on

defense every year and we don’t have

enough face masks for our health care

workers we don’t have enough ventilators

for a critically ill yeah somewhere

somewhere in there we have got to

rethink our priorities well indeed

in some ways it’s very simple it’s about

math it’s about science it’s about a

common enemy when you have a common

enemy you kind of have to unite against

it and I still the optimist in me is

holding on to that possibility as well

that eventually we’ll all come around to

that free thank you so much for the work

you’re doing for spending this time here

now I do think the world needs more

analytical journalists Whitney you got

anything else as we wrap up here no I

think if you can hear me now on the the

audience has been just very the

responding very positively in really

receptive to what you’ve been saying so

thank you so much for you for joining us

today thank you but it really is my

pleasure thank you for you take care