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